Oral Answers to Questions

TRANSPORT

The Secretary of State was asked—

M6 Toll Road

Michael Fabricant: If he will makea statement on the planned future link between the M6 toll motorway and the M54.

Stephen Ladyman: The Highways Agency is working with the local highway authority to consider the benefits and disadvantages of providing an upgraded link road between the M54 and the M6/M6 toll motorway. The study work is in its early stages and an initial assessment of the options will be complete by the autumn of 2006.

Michael Fabricant: The Minister is dead right in saying that the study is in its early stages because an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 has revealed that the Highway Agency says:
	"The current position regarding the M54 to M6 Toll Link is that development work has not proceeded as quickly as originally"
	planned. He recognised the importance of that link road to strengthen not only the economy of mid-Wales, but those of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and greater Shropshire—

Owen Paterson: And North Shropshire.

Michael Fabricant: And North Shropshire, as my hon. Friend points out. Indeed, the link would benefit everywhere west of the M6 toll, so when will it be ready?

Stephen Ladyman: We have already recognised that, in principle, we would be minded to support the scheme, but we must consider the details. In particular, one of the things that we must decide before we design such a scheme is where the new capacity between the midlands and the north-west will be provided—will the M6 be widened, or will there be a parallel toll road? Until we make that decision, we cannot decide on the design of the junction.

David Wright: Does my hon. Friend know that the M54 was recently voted one of the most popular motorways in Britain? That is, of course, largely because it goes to and from Telford—

Daniel Kawczynski: And Shropshire.

David Wright: And wider Shropshire, of course. However, one of the problems that the business community in particular complains about is the fact that people cannot go northbound directly off the M54 on to the M6, and there is no direct link, of course, to the M6 toll road. It would be particularly advantageous to local business in Telford and across Shropshire if those links could be made. Will the Minister look very seriously at the proposal?

Stephen Ladyman: I have no doubt that the quality of the drive experience on the M54 and the destinations that can be reached on it are responsible for its popularity. On paper, the case for the scheme looks very strong— I can certainly understand the benefits to the local economy—but we must consider it very carefully, and we must also consider the disadvantages and weigh the benefits against those disadvantages. In particular, we must know what we are going to do with the M6 before we can finalise the design scheme, so we cannot commit ourselves at this stage, although I repeat that it looks as though there is a strong case.

Patrick Cormack: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that any such road will almost certainly go through my constituency, that there is great uncertainty in South Staffordshire, because of the doubtful outcome of the M6 inquiries, and that the sooner we can know precisely what the Government will propose, the better?

Stephen Ladyman: I quite understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns, and such things must be disconcerting for his constituents. This matter has been going on for many years, even before this Government came to power, so I certainly understand his concerns and realise that he wants as early a decision as possible. I undertake to provide as early a decision as I can. I understand that he has already met the Secretary of State for Transport to discuss the issue, and if I can be in any way helpful to the hon. Gentleman's constituents in the meantime, I will certainly try to do so.

David Kidney: The non-trunk roads that motorists are using in the absence of the link road are mostly in the Stafford constituency, so may I assure the Minister that there is a lot of public support locally for the link, that it would make rural roads safer and that it could solve the problem of the present bottleneck where the M6 toll road joins the M6 motorway? May I add my voice to that of those who are urging him to treat this matter with some urgency?

Stephen Ladyman: Once again, I can certainly understand the need for a degree of urgency in this matter, but my hon. Friend has already been engaged in detailed discussions with me about the future of the M6, which is also a matter of great concern to him, so he will understand that there is also a lot of sensitivity about that. I cannot make assumptions about the design of the M6 until we have finished our consultation, so we cannot make assumptions about the design of the junction until we have made that decision. I will offer urgency proportionate to the complexity of the decisions that must be taken.

Daniel Kawczynski: I should like to echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and the hon. Member for   Telford (David Wright) about the importance of this road. As I have mentioned on many occasions, Shrewsbury is the only county town without a direct rail link to London.

Andrew Turner: Oh, no, it is not.

Daniel Kawczynski: It is. Does the Minister agree that the road will be vital to provide better communication for Shrewsbury, thus encouraging business investment?

Stephen Ladyman: All I can do is repeat again that the case for the scheme looks strong on paper. It looks strong on economic grounds and on the basis of its benefits for the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but we have to examine it carefully. We must consider the design carefully and weigh up the disadvantages before we can make a final decision. I heard what the hon. Gentleman said and I am happy to continue discussing the matter with him in the future.

Rail Services

Julie Morgan: If he will take   steps to make the train journey from Cardiff to London less costly for passengers.

Derek Twigg: The saver return and season ticket fares from Cardiff to London are regulated and limited to an average annual increase of 1 per cent. above inflation. There is also a wide range of other unregulated fares. They are set by operators and will often offer cheaper travel, especially if booked in advance.

Julie Morgan: I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he aware that the first class return fare from Cardiff to Paddington is £199 and that one can fly to Athens and back for less? Is he also aware that the Apex return fare is £24.50? Is there anything that he can do to try to make Apex returns more widely available and less restricted so   that many more of our constituents can travel up to London to visit us?

Derek Twigg: Fares must be competitive. Unregulated fares must compete with the fares of airlines and buses and the cost of using a car. However, regulated fares are lower in real terms than they were in 1995. There is a balance to be struck between what the taxpayer and the fare payer pay. As my hon. Friend says, there are quite a number of good deals on lower fares. It is important that they are publicised and that people are aware that they are available.

Madeleine Moon: Will the Minister assist people from my Bridgend constituency who are disabled and may wish to go to Cardiff to shop, or come to London to see their Member? They have to plan their journey at least 24 hours in advance so that they can access the platform without going over horrendous sets of steps. The railway station insists that it must be given a minimum of 24 hours' notice to open a side gate to give people access to the London and Cardiff-bound platform. Can the Department give any assistance?

Derek Twigg: I will have a look at that and get in touch with the operator. We have announced the   £370 million access for all fund to make access to the railway better for disabled people and those with prams. We will make an announcement in the near future about the stations that will be part of the first stage of the programme.

Road Traffic Projections

Mark Lancaster: What assessment he has made of the number of motorists who will be using roads in England by 2014.

Alistair Darling: The Department estimates that there will be about 36.4 million driving licence holders in Great Britain in 2014, compared with just over 32 million in 2004. Furthermore, 27 million cars were licensed in Great Britain in 2004 and we think that that will grow to 31.3 million by 2014.

Mark Lancaster: The M1 is due to become even more congested due to the Government's plans to build 100,000 houses between junctions 13 and 16. Is the Minister aware of the special problems with junction 13? The much-needed dualling of the A421 to get people off the M1 into Milton Keynes appears to be going nowhere because the plan falls between two regions that have given it different priorities. May I simply ask the Secretary of State to knock some heads together and arrange a meeting of the planners from the two regions to try to ensure that the much-needed project moves forward?

Alistair Darling: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. We are about to receive from different parts of the country their views on priorities for transport. There will undoubtedly be roads that affect different regions, in which case the Department will have to reach a view. The Government have made additional money available for several projects in Milton Keynes. On public transport, we made about £24 million available for rebuilding the station, which we hope will help as well. I am aware of the point that he makes about roads. There are a lot of pressures on the road budget, but in some cases we will have to find out what we can do to enable traffic to flow better.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Before 2014, the Olympics will of course come to London, which will bring an enormous number of visitors and lead to additional traffic on the roads of this country. My constituency hopes to take advantage of the boost to tourism, but I am worried that visitors who wish to drive to Portsmouth will be deterred by the bottleneck at Hindhead. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me and the South East England regional assembly that the Hindhead tunnel is the top transport priority for the south-east region?

Alistair Darling: I am aware that the region attaches considerable importance to the Hindhead tunnel. I am also aware of considerable concern about the cost increase. Ministers will examine the matter in the fairly near future.

Peter Viggers: I echo the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry). There is concern in Hampshire and other parts of the south of England that major road projects are, in effect, parked on the hard shoulder while priority is given to infrastructure projects relating to the Olympic games. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that projects such as the tunnelling of the A3 at Hindhead will continue to have priority?

Alistair Darling: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government's aim is to continue to spend increasing sums in parts of the country where road improvements are necessary. The money for projects that will be needed for the Olympics has already been allocated, so that has no bearing on decisions relating to Hindhead or   any other area.
	The hon. Gentleman and the House will accept that, as I have said before, our problem in relation to roads generally is that we have not spent as much as we should have over the years. Looking at the figures earlier today, I noticed that in 1990 the then Government had 500 schemes in their roads programme; by 1997, the number was down to 150 because of spending cuts. We have been able to increase the amount of money available and a number of projects are now possible, but inevitably it will take time to put in place all the projects that we want.

Kerry McCarthy: I welcome the Secretary of State's decision to consider road pricing as a way of tackling congestion on our roads, rather than building more roads. I also welcome last year's decision to include Bristol in one of the feasibility studies, but does he accept that our efforts to get motorists out of their cars and on to public transport will fail in the face of the situation in my constituency, where First Group, which runs the buses, has increased fares three times in the past year, most recently by up to 22 per cent.? Will he respond to that?

Alistair Darling: When tackling congestion in Bristol or any other city it is important to achieve the right mix of adequate public transport, including affordable bus services, and appropriate measures to restrict traffic growth. That is especially important in a city such as Bristol, which I visited just before Christmas and which is already quite severely congested. I welcome my hon. Friend's remark about road pricing. I agree that we need a sensible building programme—additional capacity is needed in some places—but we must be mindful of our environmental obligations. The key is to balance the two, which is not always easy, but I believe that it can be done.

Tony Baldry: Another way to reduce pressure on the roads budget and on the roads is to invest more in railways. One way to reduce pressure on Milton Keynes would be to invest in the east-west rail link, which will eventually link Southampton and Felixstowe via Oxford, Bicester and Milton Keynes. The project has the comprehensive support of every local authority along the route and it has been the subject of more surveys and project reports than any other scheme that I can think of; all it requires is a Government funding commitment. It seems strange that Milton Keynes is expanding purely on the basis of increased road use. May we have some sustainable communities and investment in the railways, especially the east-west rail link?

Alistair Darling: I am glad that across the board the Conservative party is repenting the sins of the past. I   recall that the hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the last Conservative Government, when Government spending on rail fell dramatically until 1996. One reason we have problems in some parts of the railways is that, as with roads, we did not spend money when we should have.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there have been a number of studies in respect of the east-west rail link, but even though we have doubled spending on railways since 1997, I am not convinced that that project is the right place to put our money. I believe that other areas where we need to increase capacity take priority over that scheme. If he and his colleagues are saying that we need to spend more on transport, they are absolutely right, and if they have changed their mind about the position that they have taken in the past few elections, that is very good as well.

Chris Grayling: It is all well and good for the Secretary of State to continue to blame the last Conservative Government for all the problems with our transport system. His Government have been in power for nearly 10 years now. Does he remember that five years ago the Government published a detailed strategy on transport and how all the problems would be solved during the current decade? It was called the 10-year plan for transport. Can he tell the House why so many of the commitments and promises made in that document have been abandoned?

Alistair Darling: In relation to the hon. Gentleman's first point, I have been very careful in the past four years not to lay all the problems of underfunding in transport on the Conservative Government. [Interruption.] True, they were in power for 18 years and one might have thought that something would be done during that period, but unfortunately the underinvestment goes back through successive Governments right back to the   1960s. The point that I was making to the hon.   Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) was that in 1992 Government support for the railways was about £2 billion, but by 1995–96 it had plummeted to £431 million. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the years that followed there were severe difficulties in relation to the railway because of a backlog of maintenance and investment. Money is essential, not just on the railways but elsewhere.
	In relation to the 10-year plan, the Government set out a spending programme for 10 years—one that was renewed and increased in the spending review in 2004. There is a key question that the hon. Gentleman must consider—I do not expect him to answer it today, but at some point he will have to tell us. It is all very well to say that his approach is changing and that he now understands that investment is necessary, but is he able to come up with the money to do so? He must know that his leader is committed to spending less on public expenditure than we are.

Chris Grayling: So let us look at the Government's real commitments on spending. For example, in the 10-year plan and in many of the things that the Secretary of State has said since, he has talked about solving the   congestion problems on our roads, or at least contributing to solving those problems, by getting freight off the roads and on to the railways. Can he explain why his Department has cut funding for rail freight by nearly half in the past three years?

Alistair Darling: Rail freight has gone up 36 per cent. over   the past few years. I have said before in the House   on many occasions that I do not believe that the   way to encourage freight is continually to subsidise it. We want to encourage the carriage of freight that is a   commercial proposition. I am surprised that a Conservative Government—Conservative Opposition, rather—[Interruption.] It is worth reminding people of the threat that there might be a Conservative Government one day. We know what happened when there was a Conservative Government—investment in roads and in railways was cut, and we know the consequences of that. As the hon. Gentleman is in such a combative mood, can he tell me what the Tories' policy is on the railways? His leader said in December:
	"Britain now needs a concerted programme of road building",
	yet the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr.   Gummer) said that
	"there must be an assumption against road building".
	What is the Tory party policy on it?

Road Safety

Anne Snelgrove: What steps   he is taking to increase safety on the roads.

Stephen Ladyman: We continue to develop and implement our wide-ranging road safety strategy. The 2004 casualty figures show that we are now over halfway towards our 2010 target of a 40 per cent. reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured, and over three quarters of the way towards our 50 per cent. target for children.

Anne Snelgrove: The Minister may know that South Swindon is the home of the new Honda Civic, one of the safest cars in its class. Will he join me in congratulating the Honda Civic on being Motor Trend magazine's car   of the year? Does he agree that even Swindon car-makers cannot build a car that stops the driver using a mobile phone while driving or ensures that the driver is licensed and insured? Those are still two of our most challenging road safety concerns. What is he doing to counteract them?

Stephen Ladyman: First, I am happy to congratulate Honda on the success of the Civic, and my hon. Friend's constituents on their work in producing it. Such improvements have to some extent come about because of changes that have been made, such as the Euro NCAP test. It is worth noting that that has its 10th anniversary this year, and the standard of safety of vehicles has gone from about two stars on average when it first came in to about four or five stars. The Honda Civic is a contributor to that.
	When the Road Safety Bill returns to the House shortly, my hon. Friend will see that we propose to legislate to make it an endorsable offence to use a mobile phone while driving. People will get not only an increased fine, but three points on their licence. It is beyond me why people continue to use a mobile phone while driving, when hands-free sets are so cheap. In addition, my hon. Friend will find that a new offence is introduced in the Road Safety Bill, which makes being the owner of an uninsured car an offence, if the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has not been notified that it is off the road. That, alongside efforts to allow enforcement from the record, will mean that we can clamp down hard on uninsured driving. I hope to see some uninsured cars going straight into the crusher to teach people a lesson.

Mark Harper: The Minister and I have corresponded about my constituency, which has sadly experienced more than 20 fatal road casualties in the past year, many of whom were youngsters under 25. Nationally, 24 per cent. of convictions for causing death or bodily harm in road traffic accidents involve drivers under 21, who make up only 4 per cent. of drivers on the road. Clause 1 of the Road Safety Bill gives the Minister the power to award grants to local authorities to fund education and training. When the Bill is enacted, will he give guidance to local authorities to encourage them to implement such measures?

Stephen Ladyman: I will certainly review that possibility. Improved training and efforts to make young drivers in particular understand the dangers of the road and the need continuously to improve and not to try to exceed their skills are important parts of our campaign. Young drivers are clearly involved in a high level of accidents, so it is vital that we get those messages over to them. We should encourage peer pressure to get drivers to behave more sensibly. As well as working with local authorities, we must do more work with the insurance industry to encourage young drivers to do pass plus and other similar initiatives.

Anne Moffat: Is my hon. Friend aware of the Scottish Executive's excellent campaign against speeding on the roads, which is bold and depicts the consequence of speeding as a child's coffin? Will he examine that campaign and consider rolling it out across the whole of the UK?

Stephen Ladyman: I have been told about that particular campaign, which complements our own campaigns in England. Equally, the police have brought the very good campaigns in Northern Ireland to my attention. We will continue to review all those campaigns and learn from the best of them, because it is important that we get the messages over.

Gregory Campbell: I   commend the excellent road safety scheme that the Minister has just mentioned. Some of us have campaigned inside and outside this House for many years about road safety on the approach roads to schools in rural areas. Does the Minister have any proposals to deal with that issue across the United Kingdom?

Stephen Ladyman: We have given local authorities powers to reduce speed around schools across England, and they can introduce 20 mph zones around schools. However, I have not instructed them to do so for all schools, because many schools in England are built on highways where it is not appropriate or sometimes even possible to reduce speed that much. In such areas, it might be better to use engineering solutions to separate the children from the road rather than automatically introducing 20 mph zones. Where reducing speed is an appropriate tactic, it is vital that local authorities use the powers that they have been given.

Stephen Hepburn: Is the Minister aware that in the past 10 years there has been the   equivalent of one casualty every week on the A1 between Newcastle and the Scottish border, which is mainly due to the fact that the full extent of the road has not been dualled? When will it be dualled?

Stephen Ladyman: There are all sorts of reasons why there are high levels of accidents on particular roads. In the case of the road that the hon. Gentleman mentions, I   realise that he may be disappointed that it has not been dualled. That has been considered. Several schemes have been reviewed for dealing with that particular road, and they will continue to be considered as necessary. However, it is important that as well as considering capacity on that road, we look at other reasons why accidents may be happening and address them on a case-by-case basis. I certainly understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about the high level of accidents on that road.

Ann Winterton: The Minister will   be aware—in fact, everyone is aware—that drink-driving is a tremendous danger on the roads, but is he aware that the police are also very concerned about the increasing number of people who are taking drugs? Research has recently shown that even a small amount of cannabis can almost double the risk of a fatal accident. Will he join the RAC Foundation and others and mount a campaign so that people are aware of these increased dangers?

Stephen Ladyman: I will not just join it—we have already started it. Over the Christmas period, I did several interviews with the BBC, including Radio 1, to get over to young people the message that drugs are a serious problem, that their effect might last for much longer than they realise, and that someone who has taken drugs is probably not in the best position to be able to judge whether they are competent to drive. The hon. Lady highlights a very important campaign. We will certainly build up our efforts in that respect. We will also look at other ways of testing for the effects of drugs to see whether we can come up with more effective strategies for testing drivers to determine whether they have been using drugs.

Rail Fares

Jim Cunningham: What discussions he has had with the rail regulator regarding recent rail fare increases.

Alistair Darling: Fares are regulated by the Department for Transport, not the Office of Rail Regulation. Unregulated fares are of course for train operators to set.

Jim Cunningham: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend is aware that a passenger travelling from Coventry to London will be expected to pay between £7 and £10 on a standard journey for the privilege, yet the rail companies have cancelled trains or have run overcrowded trains. Will he have a word with the rail companies about that?

Alistair Darling: I am aware that from time to time it can be extremely frustrating if trains are cancelled. My hon.   Friend will know that over the past few years there has been a lot of engineering work on the west coast main line as part of the general upgrade to allow for high-speed tilting trains. In addition, a lot of work continues to be done at weekends, which can cause disruption.
	In relation to fares generally, hon. Members are always concerned when fares increase. All that I would say is that there has to be a sensible balance between what the taxpayer pays and what the fare payer pays. By way of comparison, in 1995, 85 per cent. of passenger revenue came from the fare payer; today, the figure is 57 per cent.

Maria Miller: Rail travellers in my constituency are experiencing above-inflation rises in travel fares and a doubling in overcrowding on the trains that they use to come into London every day. Given the Government's increased support for railways in recent years, does not the Minister think that my constituents should be getting better value instead of having to stand every day on their journeys into work?

Alistair Darling: I would say this to the hon. Lady. Much of the rolling stock on South West Trains, including trains that her constituents will use, is new—it has been   replaced over the past five years or so. That is due,   to a large extent, to the additional support that the   Government have made available to the railways. The hon. Lady is right, though, that overcrowding is an increasing problem. A variety of things need to be done. Additional capacity needs to be provided. In addition, a number of railway companies are considering changing their pricing to encourage people who can travel at different times of the day to do so. That has been a highly successful model on the low-cost airlines, and railway companies are doing it as well.
	In the longer term, we as a country have to address the fact that there are capacity constraints in different parts of the network, and that that will require increasing investment. As I said earlier, the test for both political parties at the next election will be how much they are prepared to spend on investing in Britain's railways and other transport infrastructure. In my view, that is absolutely essential if we are to enable people to get to work and enable our economy to continue to grow.

John McDonnell: The increase in fares is compounded by the overly complex ticketing structures. When will the Government lead a review of ticketing structures and at least set a timetable for the introduction of a national rail card?

Alistair Darling: The Transport Committee is conducting a review of the structure of rail fares and we look forward to its findings. I readily accept that a wide range of fares is available, but there are an increasingly large number of pretty low fares—admittedly, there are restrictions on some. For example, it is possible to travel from London to Leeds and pay £128 for an open first class ticket, but the same rail company offers an advance ticket, which must be bought on the preceding day, for £9.50. In this day and age, most people are becoming more sophisticated about shopping around and looking for the tickets that they can best afford and that suit them best. I warn my hon. Friend and others that rationalisation or simplification sometimes results in less of a range of prices. There is therefore a trade-off between low fares and simplifying the system, which results in higher fares generally. I want to encourage more people to travel by train, and that means flexible train fares.

Susan Kramer: The south-west main line route utilisation strategy, which Network Rail produced in draft, proposes differentiating fares at the peak of the peak between 6 and 7 am and 7 and 8 as one means of tackling overcrowding. Will the Secretary of State make it clear to Network Rail that that is acceptable if such differentiation derives from a reduction in fares between 6 and 7 am but not from an increase between 7 and 8 am, which will drive people off the railways and on to the roads?

Alistair Darling: I take the hon. Lady's point. South West Trains is an interesting example of a train company that is trying out very low fares. It is piloting a £1 fare at specific off-peak periods because experience on buses and airlines, which I mentioned earlier, has shown that some people who do not have to travel at peak time may find it attractive to change their work and travelling patterns and travel at off-peak periods. We are trying to encourage people to use the railways, not drive them off them, especially in the part of London that the hon. Lady represents. I hope that she accepts that giving railway companies that flexibility might result in more people using the railways and some people travelling for less than they have to pay at the moment.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: My right hon. Friend will accept that there is no point in having a wide selection of fares if no one can find out what they are. Will he encourage rail companies to use not obfuscation to keep the customers off the rail system but clarity to help them find the cheapest and the best tickets?

Alistair Darling: I agree. It is most important, no matter what product is being sold, that the travelling public—the customers—know what is on offer. In the past few months we have awarded new franchises and railway companies are paying more money into the   railways than they did in the past, so it is in the companies' interest to ensure that more people travel by train. It is as much in their interest as it is in that of the travelling public. I repeat the point that a range of fares to suit different needs appears to be a good thing. If more of that occurs, more and more people will be carried by the railways. Indeed, last year I believe that more people were carried on the railways than at any time since just after the second world war, in the pre-Beeching era.

Stephen Hammond: On 2 January this year, regulated rail fares, which are supposedly fixed at the rate of inflation plus 1 per cent., rose by an average of 3.9 per cent., despite the official figure for inflation in December being 2 per cent. Unregulated fares rose by 4.5 per cent. on average and some fares by more than 8 per cent. The Secretary of State will recall promising that the Government would seek real reductions in the cost of rail travel by continuing to cap increases in the most recently regulated fares below the rate of inflation. How does he believe that he has achieved that this year? Is it simply another abandoned promise?

Alistair Darling: No. I last set out our policy on regulated fares in 2003, when I changed the then policy, which was completely unsustainable. I said at the time that regulated fares ought to increase by RPI plus 1 per cent. I think that I am right in saying that regulated fares now account for about 43 per cent. of all fare income, so the majority of fares are not regulated and can therefore rise by more than RPI plus 1 per cent. As I said earlier, about 57 per cent. of spend on the railways now comes from passengers; in 1985, that figure was way up at 85 per cent. It is important that we strike the right balance, although it is a matter of judgment as to what the right balance should be. On any view, however, the railways have to be paid for one way or another, and that income can come from only two sources: fare payers or taxpayers. We are trying to strike the right balance between the two. To complete the point, and to reiterate what I said earlier, headline figures such as those that the hon. Gentleman has cited are sometimes not what most passengers pay. Recent figures relating to the London to Manchester route, for example, show that the majority of people buy either advance tickets or saver tickets.

Clive Efford: In addition to the fare increases, travellers in the Network SouthEast area who use the pre-paid Oyster card face additional penalties because of the incompatibility of the Oyster system with   that of the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation—ITSO—which does not seem very smart if it cannot accept the Oyster card. It is not an insurmountable problem, but negotiations between the   Department for Transport, the train operating companies and Transport for London seem to have reached an impasse. In the meantime, a lot of Londoners are going to miss out. Can the Secretary of State assist in trying to resolve this problem?

Alistair Darling: Yes, and I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course there will be some difficulties when there are two different systems, but it is important that we try to bring the systems together, because we want more people across London and the south-east to use public transport.

Air Travel

Mark Prisk: If he will make a statement on the recent Civil Aviation Authority report on low-cost airlines and the growth in air travel.

Alistair Darling: The Civil Aviation Authority published its report, "Demand for Outbound Leisure Air Travel and its Key Drivers", in December last year. The report contains an analysis of how various factors, including changes in income, wealth and air fares, affect the demand for leisure air travel. The Government's policy on these issues is set out in the White Paper that I   published in December 2003.

Mark Prisk: In fact, the report shows that the boom in low-cost air travel has simply encouraged millions of Britons to spend more of their money abroad. The result is that our balance of payments deficit in tourism has mushroomed to £17 billion. In the light of that, and of the environmental impact of low-cost air travel, will the Secretary of State now stop claiming that all forms of air travel are automatically good for the UK economy? Will he also consider commissioning an independent study into the matter, to establish the full facts, both for and against?

Alistair Darling: I did not know that the Conservative party was in favour of exchange and travel controls. That seems quite a radical departure from its position over the past 30 years. The hon. Gentleman is right, however. It is worth bearing it in mind that, in 1998, about 8 million people travelled on low-cost airlines. The figure for 2004 was 54 million. I said before that, in   relation to aviation generally, people travelling more for business and leisure was a good thing. I do not think that the Government are in a position to say to people, "You cannot go abroad. You must stay here."—[Interruption.] That is the logical extension of what the hon. Gentleman is arguing. I strongly believe that we should encourage people to use the railways, when that is a viable option. That is why we have put so much money into the channel tunnel rail link, for example. Its next phase will open at the end of 2007, and will cut journey times from London to Paris and Brussels.
	We have also put a lot more money into improving the mainline rail services that compete with the airlines. For example, when work on the west coast main line is finally complete, people will be able to travel from London to Glasgow in four and a quarter hours, which is very competitive compared with the time spent travelling to the airport, and so on. The fact is, however, that people are choosing to travel more, and our job is to balance the need to enable them to do so with our very important environmental obligations. However, I do not accept the general proposition, which the hon. Gentleman appears to be advancing, that we should somehow force people to stay at home.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend has just told the House of the significant number of passengers carried by the low-cost airlines. Those journeys take place mainly within Europe. In that context, Sir Roy McNulty of the Civil Aviation Authority recently told a Committee of the House that   the fledgling European Aviation Safety Agency was both underfunded and understaffed, and that is was likely to run out of money quite soon in this financial year. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that travel within Europe under this fledgling agency will be safe, and that the problems in the agency will be put right?

Alistair Darling: First, for the sake of brevity, I should say that I have answered a series of questions tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs.   Dunwoody) in relation to this matter, which my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony   Lloyd) might want to look at. Yes, the European Union safety agency has enough money. However, we are extremely concerned at the lack of progress it is making in doing its job.
	I wrote to Commissioner Barrot to express the Government's extreme concern about the agency. I have also made it clear that I do not believe that there can be any question of it taking on any more responsibilities from existing national agencies until it sorts out some of the problems, which it has manifestly failed to do so far. In the meantime, however, I can assure my hon. Friend that our own safety regulator, the CAA, and National Air Traffic Services are keeping a close eye on the situation. We have made it very clear that we will not compromise safety.

Julian Brazier: Does the Secretary of State accept, in considering airport expansion, that low-cost airlines running low-cost passenger services with relatively small-capacity airliners in a business in which people pay per passenger, as airlines pay airports, do not produce a large return on extra flights? In considering expansion and, for example, the proposed runway at Stansted, does he accept that until Stansted attracts somebody other than low-cost airlines and establishes its first wide-bodied, regular service, it is difficult to see anybody being in favour of that new runway?

Alistair Darling: We seem to be getting more and more calls for state control from the Tory party; I am losing track of the movement that is taking place. No, I do not accept that proposition. The low-cost airlines, of which there are principally two at Stansted, are growing, profitable businesses, and it is not for the Government to tell them how they ought to run things. When we set out our strategy for airport development over the next 30 years—it is a 30-year programme—we came to the   view that the south-east of England, on any consideration, will need an additional two runways, the first of which is at Stansted. The fact that Stansted, at the   moment, is predominantly used by low-cost airlines does not seem to me to be a reason for stopping it, although I know what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and no doubt others do as well.

Regional Airports

James McGovern: If he will make a statement on Government support for regional airports.

Karen Buck: The White Paper "The Future of Air Transport" acknowledged the important role played by regional airports and supported their growth to serve regional and local demand. Policy initiatives such as route development funds and fifth freedom rights are helping to attract new services and to promote better connectivity for passengers at regional airports.

James McGovern: I thank my hon. Friend for that response. She will be aware of the massive contribution that Dundee airport makes to the local economy, providing vital links to London that enable and encourage businesses to locate in Dundee. I am aware that, strictly speaking, this might be regarded as a devolved issue—perhaps even a local government issue—but is there anything that the Government can do to help to secure the long-term interests of regional airports such as Dundee? Will the Government consider, for example, public service obligations—

Mr. Speaker: Order. One supplementary is fine. I ask the Minister to answer.

Karen Buck: I certainly accept the case that my hon. Friend and others have made about the importance of Dundee airport, and we support Dundee and many others. Indeed, it receives public funding from the Scottish Executive in recognition of that, and it is for Dundee to work with the Scottish Executive. We have recently published the guidance on public service obligations and we will consider specific proposals in that respect.

John Penrose: Will the Minister please consider carefully the potential growth of Bristol international airport, on the edge of my constituency of Weston-super-Mare? The growth plans it has outlined will inevitably result in significantly increased car traffic to and from the airport site. That will lead, inevitably, to greater road congestion in the area around the airport. Will she consider in particular potential expansion plans for junction 21 of the M5, which is the closest major junction to the airport?

Karen Buck: I visited Bristol in the summer, and the case for Bristol airport is well made. It is very much supported by the regional government. It is also recognised that growth will bring with it consequences for road transport and road transport access. I know that the local authorities concerned are considering the specific measures that they can introduce to ensure that airport growth does not inevitably bring with it an unacceptable rise in traffic congestion, and that there are specific proposals, which we will need to consider carefully.

Speed Cameras

David Jones: If he will make a statement on the use of speed cameras on roads.

Alistair Darling: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the written statement that I made on 15 December last year.

David Jones: I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that it is essential that motorists are satisfied that speed cameras are being operated as fairly and ethically as possible. Will he therefore please explain why magistrates courts committees are invariably part of speed camera partnerships? Does he not agree that that state of affairs can give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest, even if such a conflict of interest does not in fact exist?

Alistair Darling: I have had many representations on speed cameras, although that is not one of them so far. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in December last year I announced change to the funding regime so that the system was not biased towards putting in speed cameras—at the moment, they are effectively free. We are also considering the constitution of the groups that consider whether speed cameras or other safety measures should be put in place, including the police, local authorities and magistrates. As we develop that policy, we will take his comments into account.

Tom Brake: It is good news that safety camera partnerships can introduce road safety measures other than just speed cameras. The Secretary of State should, however, be a   champion of speed cameras. He knows that the four-year evaluation report states clearly that in areas where there is a speed camera, the number of vehicles exceeding speed limits falls by 70 per cent., and the number of people killed or seriously injured falls by just over 40 per cent. Will he confirm that, according to the report's methodology, about an extra 100 people have either been killed or seriously injured on our roads as a result of his Department's delay of over six months in implementing up to 500 speed cameras?

Alistair Darling: No, I do not accept that at all. The reason that the Government decided to delay approving new schemes is that, first, we were waiting for the four-year report, and, secondly, we had it in mind to change the funding regime, about which we had to tell the various organisations. At just about every Question Time over the past four years, and on every other occasion, I have made the point that speed cameras work. On any view, they save lives. I want to make sure, however, that we have the right funding regime and the right regime for operating them, and I believe that we are well on the way to achieving that.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was asked—

Civil Service

Alistair Burt: What recent assessment he has made of the arrangements for the resolution of personnel disputes within the civil service.

Jim Murphy: The levels at which appeals are determined is a matter for the permanent head of the relevant department. That is in line with Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service best practice guidance. I am not convinced that there are compelling reasons to change the arrangements, but I   am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the specific constituency matter.

Alistair Burt: I am grateful to the Minister for his answer and for taking the trouble to have an initial look at the case raised by my constituent, Mr. Paul Barford, who is currently under threat of dismissal from the Ministry of Defence. May I press him to consider specifically circumstances such as those in this case, in which an employee has complained that a Department has been perpetrator, judge and jury in personnel matters that might involve harassment, and in which the Department alone must determine the case? Will he examine changes to the civil service code and consider widening the scope of references to the Civil Service Commissioners?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is right that I have spent some days investigating this matter on his behalf, as I know that he has raised it on several occasions with previous Ministers. The process was introduced in 1996, is undergoing review and is currently in line with ACAS best guidance. The relevant staff trade unions have not raised a specific concern. I think that it is the first such case that has been brought to our attention by a Member of Parliament, and I wish to confirm that when there is a matter of conscience the Civil Service Commissioners can, of course, become involved. That is established in the civil service code. I am happy to discuss the specific constituency matter that he raises.

Rosemary McKenna: Is my hon. Friend aware of the excellent development of mediation services throughout the country? Many of our departments have a very good record in that respect. I think we should consider using such services more, especially to deal with personnel issues and disputes in organisations. May I urge my hon. Friend to take a close look at what is happening in some civil service departments, and discuss with those who have an interest the best way of extending mediation services throughout the service?

Jim Murphy: The Employment Act 2002 introduced a statutory grievance procedure to reduce the use of litigation as a first resort, and many Departments have   established innovative processes and procedures to make that a reality. I should be happy to meet ministerial and parliamentary colleagues and those involved in extending those processes across Government, so that the Cabinet Office can share best practice throughout the civil service.

Administrative Burdens

Andrew Rosindell: If he will make a statement on the progress of the Government's administrative burdens reduction measurement exercise.

Jim Murphy: Since the Government launched the measurement exercise last September, a significant amount of work has been undertaken. This is the first time such an exercise has been tried in the United Kingdom. The results will enable us to focus on areas in   which we can achieve significant reductions in the   administrative burdens on business, charities and voluntary organisations.

Andrew Rosindell: The Minister will know that the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, published last week, gives little or no indication of what resources the Government will commit to deregulation. Perhaps he would like to give us that information today.

Jim Murphy: The Bill published last week, which I   assume the hon. Gentleman welcomes—there is no commitment in that regard—is an ambitious model for delivery of a better-regulation agenda for UK business, voluntary sectors and others. It builds on what has already been done to ensure that, for the purposes of the World Bank and a number of other reputable organisations, the UK is one of the most supportive regulatory and economic environments in which businesses can prosper.

Tony Wright: The people who know most about how to get rid of bureaucracy are those who suffer from it within public services. Would it not be a good idea for the Government to establish a "bureaucracy-buster"? People working in public services could tell such an organisation, on the basis of direct experience, how bureaucracy could be removed, and the Government could then do something about it.

Jim Murphy: That is an interesting idea. Every month my hon. Friend comes up with another interesting and challenging suggestion. [Hon. Members: "Every day."] Every day, I am informed.
	We have already contacted more than 145,000 businesses to try to assess the extent of the administrative burden that they are experiencing. We are also communicating with the voluntary sector and others. Following my hon. Friend's question, however, I will raise the possibility of a red tape-buster in the public sector.

Oliver Heald: Rather than concentrating on reducing administrative burdens, in recent years the Department has been spending much more on Government information and communication. Is it not ironic that a Department that is responsible for cutting administrative burdens on organisations such as those of which we have heard has increased spending on just the running costs of the Government Information and Communication Service from £543,000 in 1998 to a whopping £2.38 million in the current year? How is the taxpayer expected to react to a fourfold increase in the cost of putting out the Government's message, when burdens on businesses and the other organisations of which we have heard have just gone through the roof?

Jim Murphy: I am sad to see that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is on the Back Benches this afternoon. I have missed his monthly 30-second diatribe—a single transferable diatribe—on better regulation. Perhaps he will catch your eye later, Mr. Speaker.
	As for the question of Government communications, it is important to communicate the fact that we have record levels of low unemployment, record levels of public investment and record levels of public service reform to support hard-working families. We should note the contrast between today's figures and those under the previous Government. They were probably not that interested in reporting to the public the millions who were unemployed, the generations stuck on incapacity benefit and the vast underinvestment in our public services.

Adrian Bailey: Local industrialists often tell me that there appears to be an ever-increasing flood of regulation coming from the European Union. What are the Government doing to ensure that such regulation is proportionate to the problems that it is designed to deal with?

Jim Murphy: The UK Government are involved in the sixth presidency initiative, which, as the name suggests, involves six consecutive presidents of the EU in a sustained effort to reduce bureaucracy and the number of directives coming from Europe. We are heartened by the Commission's efforts in recent months. During our presidency, it announced that it would withdraw a third of all legislative proposals, and last October it announced ambitious simplification plans, involving the removal of 90 proposals. We have a lot more work to do, and this year it is absolutely crucial that both Europe and the UK deliver on the better regulation agenda that the business community supports so strongly.

Government IT Projects

John Pugh: What assessment he has made of the compensation payments paid by IT providers to Government Departments because software provided has not been found fit for purpose; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Murphy: The recently published transformational government IT strategy set out a concerted approach to managing IT procurement across government. Individual departments are of course responsible for procurement. If software is not fit for purpose, they may seek compensation on the basis of the contract that they have negotiated.

John Pugh: I thank the Minister for that answer. Can the Government explain the public interest, and the commercial reasons why details of the compensation paid to EDS after the tax credit fiasco are not publicly available, given the apparent strength of the Treasury's case?

Jim Murphy: Of course, the specifics on many individual procurement compensations are placed in the   public domain. Revenue and Customs announced the details of the settlement with EDS, which was £71 million. I will investigate the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, but I should re-emphasise that most IT procurements are successful; if compensation is an issue, it is for the individual Department concerned to negotiate it. There have been some good examples in recent months, such as the Secretaries of State for Defence and for Health negotiating specific contracts that are much more generous in terms of compensation.

Rob Marris: The Minister refers to the compensation provided for in contracts. During the last Parliament, the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I was a member, looked at EDS, the Child Support Agency and computerisation in general within that department. It became clear that some contracts agreed with computer software and hardware suppliers were very poorly worded. Is his Department overseeing other departments to make sure that the wording of contracts is sufficiently tight, so that, if things break down, the taxpayer is properly compensated?

Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend is correct in saying that there were weaknesses in previous contracts as negotiated, but the transformational government strategy, which has been widely welcomed, establishes a new way of dealing quickly with contracts, such as portfolio management across government and ensuring capacity and competition in the market. Importantly, it also provides for the recruitment to departments of chief information officers—experienced IT professionals who have first-hand knowledge of how to negotiate such contracts.

David Heath: Returning to EDS, it is easy to blame IT contractors when, in fact, the commissioning department is at fault. Will the Minister confirm that the compressed time scale for introduction was set despite warnings from the supplier of a last-minute problem? Indeed, on 4 April 2003—the last day before the introduction of tax credits—the Government demanded a certificate of fitness for purpose, in anticipation of problems. Does not the eventual settlement contain what is described as a "significant confidentiality requirement" specifically to avoid embarrassment? Is it not clear that that confidentiality requirement will not in any way inhibit proper investigation by the National Audit Office?

Jim Murphy: I am not aware of the correspondence that the hon. Gentleman refers to, but I am happy to investigate the matter and report back to him. The fact is that the vast majority of Government IT projects, which are more complicated than projects in the private sector, are a success. Very high-profile examples are Directgov, the internet job bank, on which 4 million discrete job searches are made a week, and direct payment. More than 22 million individuals have had payments into their accounts enabled by successful Government IT projects and contracts.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: Yesterday it was suggested to me in points of order that the name of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) had been added to a number of early-day motions when he was apparently not in a position to give the necessary authority. I undertook to look into the matter.

Anne Moffat: Did you go into the house, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: No, I watched it on the television. The motions were signed by the hon. Member and were sent in the post to the Table Office, which checked the signature, as is its usual practice. It is clear to me that the   motions were signed before the hon. Member went out of contact and I am satisfied that the adding of his name was properly authorised. I have nothing more to say on this matter.

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[11th Allotted Day]

Child Support Agency

[Relevant Documents: The Second Report of the Work and Pensions Committee, Session 2004–05, on The Performance of the Child Support Agency, HC 44-I, and the Government's response thereto, First Special Report of the Committee, Session 2004–05, HC 477.]

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

David Laws: I beg to move,
	That this House agrees with the Prime Minster that the Child Support Agency has lost the confidence of the public, that its basic structural problems remain and that it is not properly suited to carry out its task.
	I am pleased that we have this opportunity today to debate the future of the Child Support Agency—and to   do so before the long-awaited and, frankly, long-delayed statement that we have been expecting for some months from the Department for Work and Pensions.
	All hon. Members have received many representations from constituents, usually over a period of years, about the ineffectiveness of the CSA. The concern that many of us have is that many of our constituents have now given up hope that the problems with the CSA will ever be resolved. We hope very much that when Ministers "come forward shortly", in the words of the Minister, with proposals, they will be radical and will go to the heart of the problems of the CSA. I hope that by having this debate today there will be an opportunity for Ministers to reflect on comments from both sides of the House and from Members with considerable expertise. I hope that it will not be too late to influence the shape and detail of the statement that is brought forward in a few days or weeks.
	There is no doubt about the chaotic and crisis-type situation that the CSA has been in since 1993 when it was founded by a Conservative Government. I say that now to save the Minister making that point later on, because we need to focus on what we can do to tackle the problems of the CSA in the future. Clearly, it is common ground across the House that there is a major challenge to be addressed.
	As far back as 1998, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the CSA had lost the confidence of the public and described it as "a mess" in need of "urgent reform". Yet seven years on, we still seem to have failed to address the fundamental problems that have been experienced from the founding of the agency until 1998 when the Prime Minister made that statement.
	As has been drawn to the attention of hon. Members on the Order Paper today, we have the advantage of the Select Committee report on the subject, a very critical report from a year ago in which the Committee described the CSA as a "failing organisation" that is in crisis. In its indictment, the Committee concluded that it   was difficult to exaggerate the agency's already low reputation with the public and the Committee recommended that consideration be given to the option of winding up the CSA and plans being made for an alternative set of policies.
	We know that the Prime Minister very much shares those concerns because he said so in the Chamber on 16 November last year. He said:
	"I make no defence of the current situation. . . . The truth is that the agency is not properly suited to carry out that task."—[Official Report, 16 November 2005; Vol. 439, c. 964.]

Michael Weir: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of this week's report in Scotland's Sunday Mail newspaper that the CSA's chief executive has also called for the agency to be abolished and for its functions to be transferred to other Government agencies?

David Laws: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have not read the Scottish newspaper to which he refers. Judging by the looks on Ministers' faces, I would not conclude that what the report suggests will necessarily happen.
	What did the Prime Minister's confusing remark in November mean? Many hon. Members left the Chamber that day hoping that it marked the beginning of fundamental reform of the CSA, but we later discovered that journalists who telephoned the Department for Work and Pensions found that people there knew nothing about what the Prime Minister had said. Indeed, they poured cold water on any idea that there would be fundamental reform.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr.   Plaskitt), was asked about this matter at Question Time a week ago. He said that the Department's focus was on
	"dealing with the problems in the agency so that we can get it on a stable footing."—[Official Report, 9 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 10.]
	That does not sound like a plan for dramatic change or for the abolition of the CSA.

John Redwood: Why did the hon. Gentleman table an entirely negative motion that contains no positive suggestions about how to reform the CSA? Is it because he does not have a clue about that, or because the acting headmaster—or acting leader—of the Liberal Democrats has not been able to make up his mind and cannot give him clearance for any positive suggestions? Would not it be more sensible to offer a solution?

David Laws: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for an example of the constructive approach offered by the modern Conservative party, and I look forward to hearing later what his Front-Bench team propose. However, he may be a little out of date and may not have seen the detailed paper that we have published on this matter today.

John Redwood: I am talking about the motion.

David Laws: Our aim with the motion is to persuade Ministers to support what the Prime Minister told the House in November. He made it clear then that he did not believe that the CSA was, in the language of the press, fit for its purpose.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: In a moment.
	The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) will know that our motion is based on comments that the Prime Minister made on 16 November last year, and previously. We are inviting Ministers and Labour Members to do no more than agree with the Prime Minister that the CSA has "lost the confidence" of the public, that it has "basic structural problems", and that it "is not properly suited" to its task. We look forward to finding out whether Labour Members will support the Prime Minister's passionate denunciation of the CSA in its existing form, or whether they will vote against our motion.

Stephen McCabe: That is childish.

David Laws: It is not childish, as we want to establish whether the Government are clear about the extent of the reforms that are needed. The Government's amendment uses most of the same text as our motion, although it omits the passage about the CSA having lost the confidence of the public. If the Minister believes that the agency still enjoys the confidence of the public, he is very out of touch.

Peter Bone: The hon. Gentleman and I took part in a debate in Westminster Hall on this matter, but I was not sure from that whether his party ruled out ever scrapping the CSA. Will he clarify that now?

David Laws: I should be happy to send the hon. Gentleman a copy of the document that we produced today, which makes it clear that we have believed for some time that the CSA in its existing form should be scrapped, with its functions folded into those of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. After I have set out some of the agency's problems, I shall go into detail about—

Stephen McCabe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I suspect that this is not a point of order, but I shall hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

Stephen McCabe: I do not want to detain you, Mr. Speaker, but I seek clarification. If the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) intends to refer to his party's document, should it not be made available in the Library?

Mr. Speaker: I knew that it was not going to be a point of order. What the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) wants to do with his document is up to him.

David Laws: I think that we all anticipated the nature of that point of order. I will come back to the detailed proposals later, and the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity then to make his views known.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman refers to the report by the Work and Pensions Committee, on which I served, and I stand by that report. After reading the motion and the amendment, I want to ask the hon. Gentleman if he will support the amendment, because it agrees with the motion that the CSA has severe problems. Perhaps we should wrap up and go home.

David Laws: Our judgment will be based on whether Ministers clearly indicate that they intend to scrap the agency or make fundamental reforms.
	Will we find out what has happened since the Prime Minister made his grand statement, as though it was an announcement of policy that would later emerge? We have had the Minister's comments, which have made it clear that his intention is not fundamental reform or scrapping of the agency, but putting it on a stable footing. Then we had the briefings to the newspapers about the Government's great idea—the change that will make the CSA work—of tagging, which is a gimmick that nobody who is serious about dealing with the fundamental problems of the agency thinks will help to resolve them.
	The National Association for Child Support Action wrote to the Secretary of State on 9 January on the Government's proposals to tag non-payers of child maintenance. The letter stated that
	"it is difficult to see what benefits this . . . might bring, in view of all the enforcement powers already available. It is anticipated that current attempts"—
	to fix the agency—
	"will be much like the others and produce ghosts from the past to haunt the future".
	Those hon. Members who are serious about reform of the CSA—and I include the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) among them—will know that the detailed enforcement mechanisms form a small part of the serious problems of the agency, which were addressed in the report by the Work and Pensions Committee.

Frank Field: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman does not support the tagging idea. A constituent who was tagged recently visited my surgery and took his tag off in front of me, and his middle name was not Houdini, so there are clearly problems with tagging. Given the hon. Gentleman's emphasis on civil liberties, would it not be a more effective punishment for people who do not pay maintenance to publish their photographs in local newspapers, alongside the amount of maintenance that taxpayers are paying on their behalf?

David Laws: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman's first comment. I respect his experience in debating this issue and the commitment that he has shown to the reform of the CSA over many years. I am not entirely convinced that his proposal would work, because the   low esteem in which the CSA is held by many of the people who do not pay means that they would be determined not to pay up regardless. We need to achieve a CSA that collects money, not one that focuses on a tiny number of people who are determined not to meet their obligations.

Bob Spink: While the hon. Gentleman is talking about extreme sanctions, can he tell us what the Liberal Democrats' policy is on the confiscation of driving licences from feckless fathers?

David Laws: That sanction has been used on a very few occasions—they can be counted on the fingers of one hand—in recent years, so it has been totally ineffective in dealing with the 1.4 million cases that the CSA is handling. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that even Ministers have lost confidence in that measure. Journalists who had been briefed by the Department about the tagging proposals said that Ministers were selling those proposals on the basis that the removal of driving licences was potty because it stopped people working and therefore earning money to pay the maintenance that they owed. That highlights the problems with the Government's policy.
	Before we consider some solutions, we should reflect on the manifest problems in the agency, of which there is no better summary than its obvious failure to collect money and its relation to its administration costs. At present, as the Prime Minister acknowledged in November, for every £1 in administration costs, the CSA collects only £1.85 from absent parents, and the   figure has fallen over the past five years. That compares with a ratio of 1:8.5 in Australia; in other words, the Australian system is more than four times as effective as our own—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) wants to indicate that the CSA's position is even worse than it is, I shall be happy to take an intervention. Ministers owe it to us to let us know whether they are aware of any child support system in the world that is less effective than ours in collecting money from absent parents. I am certainly not aware of one.
	A second measure of how bad the CSA is at collecting the money due to it is the position on arrears. Ministers have told us on numerous occasions that arrears would be stabilised or that arrears would be paid down. When the Government came to power in 1997, the arrears owed by absent parents were £1.1 billion, but that figure has tripled to £3.3 billion, so it is no surprise that the agency's client fund accounts have been qualified by the National Audit Office in every year since the CSA began.

Russell Brown: The hon. Gentleman suggested that we could probably count on one hand the number of occasions when the power to remove driving licences had been used. Although that may be the case, does he have any indication of the number of cases where something has come about after nothing more than the threat of the removal of a licence? In other words, people threatened with the removal of their licence soon pay up, and the vast majority are self-employed.

David Laws: There are figures showing how many people have been threatened with that sanction and my recollection is that the number is in the 10s or 20s; it is certainly not huge. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises from his constituency, the fundamental problem with the CSA is not the absence of enforcement mechanisms, but the inability to make assessments quickly and accurately and then to collect the money efficiently.

Several hon. Members: rose—

David Laws: I shall give way in a moment, but I want to make a further point about one of the major problems with which the CSA is struggling—the backlog that has built up over a long period due to the ineffectiveness of the mechanism for considering assessments. Despite the   move to the new system of child support maintenance a few years ago, the agency has a backlog of 333,000 cases—a third of a million—and of those 73,000 are more than two and a half years old. That is wholly unacceptable, as is the fact that a third of the new scheme cases that have not yet been processed have experienced waiting times of 448 days. When we consider that when the new scheme was introduced the Government were talking about waiting times of six weeks—yet it is now six months—we realise what an enormous problem the CSA is experiencing.

Mark Francois: I am no defender of the CSA, but the hon. Gentleman's proposed solution is to give the problem to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, despite the fact that it experienced a fiasco in its own right in the maladministration of tax credits—a problem that continues ad nauseam. Given that the hon. Gentleman, like me, has often been critical of HMRC and the Treasury because of that maladministration, how can it make sense to give HMRC this problem when it cannot even deal with its own fiasco?

David Laws: Precisely because it was absurd in the first place to put, for entirely political reasons, means-tested benefits into the tax Department, which is used to collecting money, when in fact the CSA, which is about raising money, should be part of the Inland Revenue. The two are in the wrong position. To think of that simply as a managerial problem is totally to misunderstand the problems with both tax credits and the CSA.

Tim Farron: I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to the House's attention this very important issue. He rightly talks about the amount of money that the CSA fails to recoup from absent fathers, but I am sure that he is also aware that much of the money that the CSA recoups is wrongly recouped. For example, one of my constituents—an ex-husband—dutifully made his maintenance payments, but found that they were going to the wrong person because the CSA had the wrong national insurance number. Having cleared up that matter for him, the same thing happened again three months later. So even if one in five absent fathers is paying, many of them are paying the wrong person.

David Laws: My hon. Friend is exactly right. Sadly, the CSA's story is one not only of a deficient structure, but of gross incompetence that seems unrelated simply to the structural issues.

Lembit �pik: Does my hon. Friend nevertheless agree that many of the CSA's staff are doing their best to work in a terribly flawed system and that their position is being made even more difficult by the Government's attempt to remove key workers who can go out and meet individuals on a one-to-one basis, thus making it even more difficult for those who are charged and those who are paid to correct mistakesa problem that is particularly acute in Wales?

David Laws: Not only do I agree with my hon. Friend, but he brings me precisely to the next issue that I want to raise with the Minister: the CSA's work force. At an agency with the appalling record of mismanagement and underperformance that the CSA has had since 1993, we would expect the Government either not to cut staff numbers or to increase them. Indeed, when the Select Committee on Work and Pensions reported in January 2005, it said:
	Cutting the work force of the Child Support Agency at this critical time is the major concern of the Committee. It's a massive breach of trust for the thousands of staff who've worked hard to improve the service. It makes no sense to implement job cuts when the Agency is already struggling.
	I thought that Ministers had accepted that point, because in the Government's response to the Select Committee report in March 2005, they said:
	The Secretary of State. . . announced on 26 January that there would be no further reductions in front line staffing until the new computer system is working effectively. . . The Agency is now recruiting staff to meet current and anticipated needs.
	Anyone would conclude that, at the very least, the CSA's staffing numbers would be stable, and the final sentence suggests that they could even be on the rise.

Michael Weir: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
	When we look at the statistics, we discover that in March 2004 the CSA had about 10,800 staff, and that by the time the Government's response to the report came out, the number had fallen by about 1,000 to 9,784. We now discover that the figure will be even lower this Marchdown to 9,400and the Minister owes us an explanation as to why it has been right to cut staff numbers by one in eight at an agency that is failing some of the poorest people in the Britain and why it appears from those figures that, frankly, the Government have gone back on the clear undertakings that they made to the House about the CSA's staffing.

Robert Smith: As my hon. Friend has said, the Government's reply talks about a time when the IT system is working. It is clear from recent casework that the IT system is still failing badly. Many cases are being transferred on to a manual handling system, because the IT system cannot be repaired to deal with individuals' casework. Clearly, that will put even greater burdens on the staff and create even more problems for our constituents.

David Laws: My hon. Friend is exactly right. We were discussing earlier the IT problems that have plagued the tax credit system, and they are obviously endemic in the child support system, too.
	We could commit a large part of this relatively short debate simply to examining the deficiencies of the agency. I want to reflect briefly on the fundamental problems of the agency, and then examine possible solutions.

Adrian Sanders: Fathers are not obliged to tell the agency when they change jobs, which contributes to enormous problems in the CSA. If the scheme were managed through the Inland Revenue, surely that would no longer be a problem.

David Laws: My hon. Friend is exactly right. When I was told by an expert in the Child Support Agency that absent parents had no duty to notify the agency of a change in job or residence, I was amazed. It was only when I tabled a question to Ministers that I discovered not only that that was true, but that the Select Committee had made recommendations on the matter in its report a year ago. It also recommended that there should be a mechanism through which it could be ensured that an individual's deduction of earnings order could be transferred, because such orders are currently lost if people lose their job or decide to resign, which is bizarre.

Patrick McFadden: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: I shall give way one last time and then I must move on.

Patrick McFadden: Will the hon. Gentleman give us a little more detail about his point on staffing? If he is proposing to transfer the CSA's functions to the Inland Revenue, is he guaranteeing that all the current staff of the agency would be able to keep their jobs? If he thinks that the current staff numbers are too low, how many more staff would he hire when transferring the functions to the Inland Revenue, and what might be the cost of that?

David Laws: I am happy to say that I am making the point that it is absolutely pottyI hope that the hon. Gentleman agreesthat one in eight of the CSA's staff should be taken out over two years when the agency has a backlog of a third of a million cases, 73,000 of which have been in place for more than two and a half years. I   should have thought that that would be absolutely clear to every hon. Member.

Jennifer Willott: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Laws: My hon. Friend tempts me into taking one further intervention, and then I must move on.

Jennifer Willott: Does my hon. Friend agree that the combination of a heavy work load and reducing staff numbers has led to the CSA not investigating cases properly? Two of my constituents have told me that they notified possible benefit fraud relating to their cases to the CSA, but neither matter was investigated. Does he agree that that is yet another example of how an overworked CSA is unable to function properly?

David Laws: I would be very surprised indeed if every Member of the House did not recognise the problem to which my hon. Friend draws attention. Many people whom I have seen in my constituency advice centre in recent months have had precisely that problem.
	I shall touch briefly on the fundamental problems of the Child Support Agency before I examine some of the solutions. It is clear that the CSA is not an agency that commands respect. Many people see it not as an agency that is primarily about getting money to children, but as a means of saving money for the Exchequer. Its case load is not only heavy, but often bogged down by complex cases that might be better dealt with in the courts because of associated matters that are related to them. It is clear that the CSA cannot cope with its work load and that it is unable to link in with other agencies, including the Inland Revenue, to share information that is critical to not only making assessments, but ensuring that the money that is due is collected.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr.   Sanders) said, it is clear that non-resident parents should have the duty to notify changes of job and of address. It is clear to every hon. Member that there is too little emphasis in the agency on compliance and an unwillingness to use middle-order sanctions, including immediate deduction from earnings, to deal with problems. In the United Kingdom, some 19 per cent. of the CSA's cases involve a deduction of earnings order. The figure is about double that in Australia, which has a far more effective system. If we were to deal with that problem, it would have far more impact on the money raised for child support than some of the gimmicks that the Government have trailed.

Stephen McCabe: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's point about not making effective use of middle-order sanctions. Can he tell me what his hon. Friend meant when he referred to existing enforcement powers being draconian attacks on liberties? Are not such powers middle-order sanctions?

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman has not made it clear what comments he is referring to. My point, which I am sure he is wise enough to take, is that the CSA's objective is to raise money to help to tackle child poverty and it is   the agency's failure to do thatnot implementing enforcement mechanisms except in a desperate last-ditch attempt to get the moneythat we really need to address. Although the agency already possesses tough enforcement powers, it rarely uses them.

Michael Weir: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: I must make some progress.
	We believe that the CSA should be scrapped and its functions transferred to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. We are pleased that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has adopted a similar positionin fact, he advised the Prime Minister to do that as long ago as 1998, unfortunately without effect so far.

Chris Bryant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: I shall make some progress, then take more interventions.
	Transferring the CSA's functions to HMRC would be a dramatic and fundamental change, but there comes a point where a failing agency can no longer be patched up. That is surely the conclusion that the Prime Minister has reached, which would explain his comments in November. The switch to HMRC is not only about securing a new culture and better managementalthough, my goodness, we need both after the past 13 years. It is about making sure that there is effective transfer of information on the incomes of absent parents who are not willing to pay, and about making sure that we can more effectively deduct money from those absent parents' earnings when they show determination not to   pay. HMRC is in a far better position than the CSA to gather that information and to deduct money at source.
	The CSA must retain a simple tax-like formula for assessing maintenance and we give the Government some credit for their efforts to simplify the formula since 1997. Simplicity is vital if maintenance calculations are to be made quickly and reliably.

Anne Begg: I have not had a chance to read the Liberal Democrat document that sets out their proposalsit might have been better to state them in the motion. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his party's position? Responding to the National Audit Office report on the complexity of benefits, his hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) said that it was their party's policy to separate the benefits system from the tax system, yet today the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) appears to be arguing that the element of the benefits system administered by the CSA should be part of the income tax system. I am confused.

David Laws: I am happy to enlighten the hon. Lady by showing her a copy of the documents, but I suspect that she has got her wires slightly crossed. I believe that she has in mind the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) rightly made pointing out that Her   Majesty's Treasury is precisely the wrong place for the administration of means-tested benefitswhich is what tax credits are, after all. I am sure that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions that produced the excellent report a year ago and signed up to fundamental changes, including scrapping the CSA if it was not sorted out, understands the point that I am making today.

Several hon. Members rose: 

David Laws: I shall take one more intervention, but then I must press on so that others have time to speak.

Chris Bryant: By giving way to me, the hon. Gentleman has disappointed many of his colleagues. He has made some fair points this afternoon and is right to say that all hon. Members know from their own casework the problems of the CSA, but I counsel him against using the term scrapping the CSA. The feedback that I get from my constituency is that every time there is talk of scrapping the agency, some of the feckless parents to whom the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) referred suddenly think that they no longer have to pay anything or make any sort of contribution. Although some of his suggestions may be good ones, I suggest that he lay off the populist rhetoric.

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman is an expert on populist rhetoric, but I shall take that as one of his more measured and constructive interventions. I accept the point that he makes. We are not suggesting that absent parents should not have an obligation to make payments. We are suggesting that we should put a Government body in charge, with the powers, ability and effectiveness to do the job an awful lot better than it has been done for the past 13 years.
	There are a number of other issues that ought to be part of a reform of the Child Support Agency. It is clear that we can no longer tolerate a situation where not only does it take an enormous amount of time to make the maintenance calculations, but where these are often not implemented for lengthy periods, so massive arrears build up. There must be a determined time limit within which the maintenance deductions can start. There should also be a new statutory requirement on non-resident parents to report change of address or change of job so that they are not able to get away unnecessarily with dodging their maintenance liabilities. As we said earlier, there must be a halt to the reduction of staff numbers, which is inconsistent with the failed state of the agency. There must be a more effective enforcement arm.
	I hope also that the Minister will acknowledge that when we get a statement and possibly legislation, the reform will be fundamental. I hope that he and his colleagues will seek to bring in the considerable expertise that exists in this place and on the Select Committee, as well as in outside bodies. We are discussing an incredibly detailed area. I hope the Minister will consider the idea, which was recommended by the Select Committee in 1999, of a child support advisory committee that could comment on any new measures, to make sure that we get the new child support arrangements right.
	We strongly agree with the Prime Minister that the time has come to stop patching up a system that has failed for the past 13 years. We want to see fundamental reform, not gimmickry or incremental change. We hope the Minister will give us a signal of that intent on behalf of the Government today.

James Plaskitt: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	agrees with the Prime Minister that the Child Support Agency suffers from basic structural problems and is not properly suited to carrying out its current tasks; accepts the importance of ensuring that more families with children receive the maintenance payments to which they are entitled; and notes that the Government will shortly set out its conclusions on the right way forward following the Chief Executive's review of the operation of the Child Support Agency.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr.   Laws) for giving the House the opportunity to discuss a range of child support issues. I listened carefully to his speech, which I would characterise as a great many words marching across the paper in search of a new idea. I waited to hear one, but it was absent.
	Let me correct the hon. Gentleman on two key parts of the argument that he advanced. First, he made great play of enforcement, yet when he was quite reasonably challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Steve McCabe) on what his party had previously said about that, he carefully ducked the question. I remind him that his party's previous spokesperson on the issue described the existing sanctions at the agency's disposal as draconian attacks on liberties. I therefore doubt the veracity of the hon. Gentleman's calls for greater enforcement, because those do not match what his party has hitherto said on the subject.
	Secondly, the hon. Gentleman set great store by staffing. I am anxious to correct the information that he gave to the House. In March 2005 the agency employed 9,784 staff. The latest headcount on 30 September 2005 was 10,027. The agency is recruiting, and on present trends it is anticipated that by March this year there could be 11,000 staff in the agency. As part of the recovery plans that are being put in place, additional staff are being recruited to tackle the problems in the agency. Far from his giving the impression that the number of staff is declining, the fact is that the figure is already several hundred higher than the March 2005 level and is still rising.

David Laws: I am keen to establish the facts. The figures that I cited came from a parliamentary answer provided by the Secretary of State in the past month. If they are inaccurate or distorted, I want to hear about it, so we can all understand the real situation.

James Plaskitt: I have seen almost all of the 158 parliamentary questions tabled by the hon. Gentleman on the subject in the past eight months, because I signed almost all the answers. I assure him that the figures that I have given him are consistent with the printed information in parliamentary answers.

David Laws: Will the Minister give way?

James Plaskitt: No; let me make some progress.
	The third part of the hon. Gentleman's pitch concerned his party's document, which sets out what he thinks his party could do with the agency. The document seems to be highly secret, because it is not in the Library, and we cannot even obtain it from the Liberal Democrat press office.
	Notwithstanding those matters, I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Member for Yeovil for giving the House the opportunity this afternoon to discuss a range of child support issues. I entirely understand his concern and that of all other hon. Members about the performance of the Child Support Agency, which is clearly unacceptable. Since the agency was set up nearly 13 years ago, it has accumulated more than 3 billion in debt. It has more than 300,000 cases awaiting an initial   maintenance assessment, and 30 per cent. of non-resident parents who are assessed to pay maintenance fail to do so. That situation cannot be allowed to persist. Although the problems facing the CSA are huge, we should not forget that the primary responsibility for non-resident parents to contribute to the upbringing of their children lies with the parents themselves.
	I want to describe the circumstances in which staff in the CSA are expected to operate. Many clients come to the agency when their relationship has broken down, when they have lost their job or even when private maintenance arrangements have failed. It will never be   easy for the state to be involved in the difficult and   emotional circumstances that often surround parents when child support becomes an issue. The circumstances are often extremely fraught, and Government intervention in relationships, money or caring for children may inflame parents who are already in a tense situation, but we expect staff in the agency who sort out child support maintenance to become involved in a mixture of all three issues.

Anne Main: In my constituencyI am sure this is true of many other hon. Members' constituencies, tooone unfortunate absent parent, as he is deemed, has been paying under the old system since 2003, which has caused him hardship. When I wrote to the Minister about the case, he referred me to a parliamentary answer:
	We will only make a decision on the transfer of old scheme cases once we are confident that the system and business processes are robust.[Official Report, 20 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 705W.]
	Which systems and business processes require improvement, and what is the time scale? Can the Minister provide any hope for people such as my constituent, who is waiting for those business processes and who is desperate to leave the old system?

James Plaskitt: The issue concerns converting cases from the old scheme to the new scheme, which has been a fundamental problem in the agency. I will go into the matter in more detail, but the summary answer to the   hon. Lady's question is that hundreds of thousands of cases are at issue. It is clearly sensible to contemplate convergence from the old scheme to the new scheme only when the IT is robust enough to support it. The problem has been that the system on which the agency depended for some time, which was thought to have some short-term faults, has turned out to have faults of a much more structural nature. It must of course be stable before we even contemplate the conversion of cases that are on the old system.
	Let me say to the hon. Lady, and to other Members who may be tempted to intervene on the same point, that this issue is central to the analysis that the new chief executive has been carrying out, and we will have more to say about it shortly when we make our statement on the future of the agency.

Malcolm Bruce: This is related, but not directly, to the same issue. The CSA's standard response to inquiries is to say that the matter has been resolved and to provide a letter that one can send to one's constituent saying that it will be cleared up. Two or three months later, one gets a letter from the constituent saying that absolutely nothing has happened, and the correspondence, which was closed,   has to be reopened. Would it help the CSA if it   could deal with those cases and not extend the   correspondence, and the problems facing the constituent, unnecessarily?

James Plaskitt: We are all able to cite examples from our constituency case filesI can do that just as well as any other Member. I completely understand the hon. Gentleman's point. The situation is symptomatic of performance issues inside the agency that are not acceptable and clearly must improve. He cites one form of the problemcorrespondence that purports to have done something but has not, which means that the case has subsequently to be reopened. That creates one of the problems that the recovery scheme for the agency must address.

Linda Gilroy: Before those interventions, my hon. Friend was beginning to set out the complexity of many of the cases that people at the CSA have to deal with. When I visited the agency in Plymouth, I learned that as many as one in 10 of those cases involve multiple partners, some with as many as five to 10 partners to try to sort out. Would my hon. Friend consider isolating those complex cases so that they can be dealt with separately from the others? That might improve the performance on the other nine out of 10 cases that we all want to be dealt with more efficiently.

James Plaskitt: My hon. Friend makes an interesting and pertinent point. I, too, have seen flow charts that the agency has produced showing the extraordinary interlinking between different cases. I take on board my hon. Friend's point about separating such cases. Cases in which the administration is extremely faulty and which come to us as constituency MPs often tend to be those that relate to very complex arrangements. It is in the nature of things that we do not get to see the relatively straightforward cases that the CSA handles, which are quickly processed and stay in payment without much problem for the lifetime of the maintenance agreement. However, we should bear the   complex cases in mind when we are contemplating how to deal with the agency and the problems that arise, of which there are far too many in such cases. My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

Michael Weir: rose

James Plaskitt: I need to make a bit of progress, but I   am happy to give way again.

Michael Weir: I am interested in what the Minister is saying about the complexity of cases. Does not that go back to the original resourcing of the agency? Before coming to this House I was a solicitor, and I have dealt with the CSA, in both capacities, for some 13 years now. I well remember the naivety of those who set it up. They did not understand the lengths to which some absent parents would go to avoid paying anything for their childrenthe feckless parents to whom the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) referred. That is the root of the problem, and only by proper staffing and resources will we ever get round it.

James Plaskitt: The hon. Gentleman is right again to emphasise the complexity of cases and the extraordinary lengths to which some people will go to try to evade their responsibilities. We are asking the agency to deal with people who are of that frame of mind, will not face up to their responsibilities as a parent, and will go to the most extraordinary lengths to avoid doing so. That is why, as part of this debate, we have to think about the agency's enforcement powers. I will say more about that shortly.

Several hon. Members: rose

James Plaskitt: I want to make some progress, because I have hardly started yet. I promise to give way to other hon. Members in a moment.
	Before I took that group of interventions, I had started to explain the difficulties with which the agency has to deal. The provision of child support is an especially difficult aspect of welfare reform. We have struggled with it in the UK for some time, even before the CSA was established. We are not alone in that. Other countries find it difficult as well.
	It is worth reminding the House, especially in the light of the previous intervention, of the position before the agency was founded. It was well described in the 1990 White Paper, from which I shall quote a paragraph. It states:
	The present system of maintenance is unnecessarily fragmented, uncertain in its results, slow and ineffective. It is based largely on discretion. The system is operated through the High and county courts, the magistrates' courts, the Court of Session and the Sheriff Courts in Scotland and the offices of the Department of Social Security. The cumulative effect is uncertainty and inconsistent decisions about how much maintenance should be paid. In a great many instances, the maintenance awarded is not   paid or the payments fall into arrears and take weeks to re-establish.
	Sometimes an impression is created of a golden age of child maintenance before the CSA was set up. It is worth reminding ourselves that it never existed.

Anne Begg: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has highlighted the personal cost and the difficulty of getting money from absent parents when relationships have broken down. Has he any evidence that the culture of the Inland Revenue means that the people who would do the job under the Liberals' scheme have any understanding of that complexity in an already complex part of the benefits system, and of the human cost that could ensue from a system of faceless bureaucrats simply getting money out of people? The matter is far more complex than that.

James Plaskitt: My hon. Friend is right. The matter is complex and there is a certain simplicity about the Liberal Democrats' repeated suggestion. They used to propose giving it all back to the courts but have recently switched to giving the system to the Inland Revenue. The courts found the complexity difficult to tackle and the results were unsatisfactory. The agency has found it difficult to deal with complex cases and, again, the results are not entirely satisfactory. Simply handing the   process to the Inland Revenue would not remove complexity and difficulty. I cannot accept that somehow there is something about the Inland Revenue's administration that would not trip up over the complex relationships that lie at the heart of many difficult CSA cases. My hon. Friend is right: it is much more complicated than that.

Andrew Turner: I congratulate the Under-Secretary on finding the quote from the White Paper. Does he recall that, before 1990, the taxpayer paid for many more absent parents than is the case now? Getting rid of that inequity was the fundamental benefit of setting up the CSA. Sadly, there   is now a different inequity. Two families in identical circumstances can pay very different amounts because of the disparity between the two schemes. The Under-Secretary suggests that he can foresee no date by which those two schemes will be rolled out together. Is he genuinely telling the House that?

James Plaskitt: The hon. Gentleman makes two points. He is right about the cost to the taxpayer before the agency was set up. That is one of the reasons for the   previous Government's decision to introduce the agency and move away from the court-based system.
	The hon. Gentleman is not entirely right about the two schemes. I understand his pointI have made the   same criticism of the position before today. Two schemes are running in parallelin some ways, the position is even more complex because there are sub-divisions in the schemes. However, if he can await the statement that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make shortly on the agency, he will find an answer to his point.
	Before the agency was introduced in April 1993, there were two main routes for cases in which couples could not make their child maintenance arrangements. Maintenance was determined by the courts, which enforced it only on application to do so and with limited facility to trace non-paying parents. When the parent with care was on benefit, maintenance was secured through the then Department of Social Security's liable relative scheme. That involved benefits staff negotiating an amount of maintenance with the non-resident parent, who was generally paid only while the parent with care stayed on benefit. That resulted in massive inconsistency in the amounts paid, and did not support parents who wanted to return to work.
	The original child support scheme introduced with the CSA was meant to address those problems. In the event, however, we had an initial formula that parents, their advisers and even agency staff just did not understand. The agency therefore hit problems from day one, but the Government's approach at the time was to introduce a whole range of legislative changes that served only to add to the complexity of the scheme, until they reached the point under the old scheme at which some cases needed up to 100 separate pieces of information to make an assessment. That had the effect of drawing staff away from enforcement and into information gathering, meanwhile leaving many more children in poverty.

Paul Rowen: Notwithstanding what the Minister said earlier about the use of the courts, does he accept that, in complex cases in which child care orders might already be before the court, it might speed matters up if the ability to make court orders were returned to the courts while they were already dealing with other family-related issues?

James Plaskitt: I am not sure whether that was, is or will be part of Liberal policy. Perhaps when we have found the secret document that no one can lay their hands on at the moment, we will discover what lies behind that comment.
	The agency has been grappling with performance issues almost from day one. Indeed, initially it cost more to run the agency than it collected in maintenance. That situation was reversed only after 1997.
	As well as examining matters internally, we have looked abroad to see whether we can learn anything from schemes elsewhere. The simple answer is that no one country has completely cracked the problem of creating an effective child support system. People often quote Australia as the benchmark to which we should aspirethe hon. Member for Yeovil did so earlier. However, we are not comparing like with likeindeed, the hon. Gentleman did not do so in his speechand I   shall explain why. The Australian estimate of maintenance includes all money paid directly by non-resident parents to parents with care, whereas the UK comparison includes only the maintenance paid through the Child Support Agency. Furthermore, the Australian link to the tax system is critically dependent on the different way in which the tax system there is structured. The comparisons with Australia are not as straightforward as the hon. Gentleman might like to suggest.

David Laws: I quite accept that the comparisons need to reflect the differences between the two countries. However, can the Minister cite a single child support agency in any developed country that has a worse record of collection per pound of administration than we do in Britain?

James Plaskitt: I accept that point. The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct to say that our CSA comes out poorly in international comparisons of the cost per unit collected. That is precisely why we are now addressing some of the fundamental issues in the agency. We have been looking carefully at the systems that operate in other countries and feeding our findings into our recent root-and-branch review of the agency's operations.
	It is not my intention to downplay or minimise the problems in the agency. As many hon. Members will know, I have been a regular critic of it myself. In this debate, however, it is important that we try to maintain an overall perspective of the situation. Despite all the well documented problems, there are nevertheless signs of improvement in the agency's performance. Last year, it collected more than 600 million from non-resident parents, and nearly 400,000 parents with care received maintenance, either via the agency, or arranged by the   agency but paid directly. This equates to 529,000 children who now have maintenance as a result of the agency's intervention, and since its inception the agency has collected 4.5 billion of maintenance payments.
	Over the last calendar year, 2005, case and cash compliance, accuracy, enforcement and the telephony improved. Between January and September, the number of outstanding, uncleared potential applications across both schemes fell by 8 per cent. from 362,000 to 333,000. That is still far too high, but from the trend over the year we begin to see a reduction in that number. In September, the last month for which we have accurate figures, 25 per cent. of new cases coming to the agency were cleared in less than six weeks, although the average clearance timethis is not acceptablewas 26 weeks.

Tony Baldry: I am sure the Minister fairly accepts that the cases that tend to come to us are   the difficult ones, but one thing that seems to be grossly unfair is the fact that, even in those cases where   the ombudsman accepts that there has been maladministration or a claimant has been seriously let downthe worst of the worstthere seems to be no process of compensation. People can lose out really badly, and neither the parliamentary commissioner nor the independent case reviewer seems to be in any position to award decent compensation. This may involve minimal stuff such as inconvenience, but there seems to be no provision in the system for compensation to be made for losses incurred.

James Plaskitt: As a matter of fact, there is the facility for compensation payments. There are payments for inconveniencethe hon. Gentleman might be thinking of thosewhich tend to involve small amounts, such as 100 or 200.

Tony Baldry: I am talking about real compensation.

James Plaskitt: The agency can make compensation payments, some of which can be quite sizeable. We are talking about payments of thousands of pounds. If the hon. Gentleman wants more information on that, I urge him to get in touch with my Department and we will happily explain it to him.

Bob Spink: I am grateful to the Minister, who is being generous in giving way. While he is talking about improvements to the CSA, may I try to be constructive? The residence of the child may change between parents, and the new parent with residence may previously have been a feckless parent who withheld payments to the previous parent. The CSA will chase the good parent and force them to make payments to the feckless parent, but will not enable the good parent, who did not receive the money from the feckless parent, to net off the amount that they have to pay. Will he make that simple change so he can remove that injustice?

James Plaskitt: The hon. Gentleman might describe that as a simple change, but I suspect that it would turn out to be nothing like so simple in the application. After all, what we must put at the centre of all this is the child. The objective is to ensure a flow of maintenance to support the child. Whatever changes we make to the scheme, it must be based on the central tenet that the purpose of having the agency is to ensure support for children who would otherwise be vulnerable.
	Although enforcement is too low, it is improving. For example, in 200203, 2,300 liability orders were granted by the courts. Last year, the figure more than doubled to 5,600. In the first eight months of this year, the total was already 6,300.

Rosie Cooper: Like many other hon. Members, I have constituents and their children who are living in unnecessary poverty and who rely on the CSA to collect the arrears. I am interested in what the Minister has just said because I am dealing with what is patently a straightforward case, but the father is a barrister who is leading the CSA a merry dance, thwarting at every opportunity its right to collect the money. If non-paying parents, especially those who know the law, are using the system and feel that nothing will be done to enforce their responsibility towards their children, that just adds to the CSA's difficulties. What more can be done to encourage the CSA to take action against those who are wilfully doing that and what can the courts do to help?

James Plaskitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She is right to say that some non-resident parents will try to play the system for all it is worth and exploit every available opportunity. Many of us have come across such instances at our advice surgeries.
	The agency is now taking much more action on enforcement. I have given my hon. Friend the figures on the sharp increase in the number of orders placed before the court, but may I also point out the effectiveness of the liability orders? Let us consider the case of a non-resident parent who was self-employedoften the category who are effective at playing the systemand whose debts, accumulated over four years, had grown to nearly 9,000. When the agency went to the court to take a liability order, that was enough to make that non-resident parent pay up in full. We have plenty of examples of how stepping up action on the liability orders, as we are doing, has the desired effect on some of those non-resident parents who have been trying to duck the system, in some cases for quite a long time.

Michael Weir: rose

James Plaskitt: I shall make a little progress, as I have taken a lot of interventions and I know that there are Members who wish to make speeches.
	While the number of complaints about the agency is too high, it has also stabilised. In September 2005, 88 per cent. of initial complaints were resolved by the agencyor a resolution plan was agreed with the clientwithin three weeks. That figure is up from 74 per cent. in the previous year. I am pointing out those improving trends in order to dispel the view sometimes put about that every aspect of the agency is completely beyond hope. The truth is that the problems are sizeable, and some are chronic. The performance is not what it should be. There is a platform on which to build, however, which is in large part thanks to a dedicated staff grappling with the challenges.
	I hope that the House will agree that it is essential to incorporate arrangements for delivering child support in a modern welfare system.

Natascha Engel: This might be a good opportunity to emphasise that there is a distinction to be made between the performance of the CSA and the performance of its staff. I and other members of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions visited the CSA office in Hastings and were struck by the incredible dedication of its hard-working staff and the stressful nature of their work. Such people are at the front line, receiving phone calls and dealing with distressing cases involving children from broken homes. The House should recognise that when we talk about the performance of the CSA, we are talking about it as an organisation, and not about the people who work there.

James Plaskitt: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Like her, I have had the opportunity to visit some CSA offices up and down the country and to talk to staff at first hand. I wanted to do that as part of our review of the agency's workings. I share her interpretation of those meetings. The staff inside the agency are being asked to do a very difficult, stressful job. They are being asked to work with a difficult system and with IT that does not always support what they are trying to achieve. As I said, they are dealing with people whose circumstances are difficult and whose lives are quite fraught. It is not a situation in which many of us would like to find ourselves on a regular, day-to-day basis, and yet the agency's staff are doing that, coping with very difficult circumstances, sticking by the agency and sharing our determination to achieve in due course a system of child maintenance in this country that works effectively. In recognition of their efforts, we should focus on fixing the problems with the agency, not only, crucially, in respect of the children whom we are trying to support, but in respect of those whom we ask to carry out that task on behalf of the community.

Danny Alexander: rose

James Plaskitt: I will give way once more, and then I   must make some progress.

Danny Alexander: I am struck that the Minister argues in the CSA's defence that its record is improving, while the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister makes clear the view that the agency is not fit for its current purpose? Which is it to be?

James Plaskitt: We were doing quite well, but now the hon. Gentleman is trying to be mischievous in deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying. I moved the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and my argument is absolutely clear. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make a little more progress, he will realise that I fully support my right hon. Friend's amendment.
	This is the point. While there have been some small signs of improvement, that is not good enough. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said,
	the task that we are asking the agency to perform is an extremely difficult one . . . we cannot discuss sensibly the Child Support Agency unless we are prepared to look urgently at the fundamental nature of the task that it performs.[Official Report, 16 November 2005; Vol. 439, c. 964.]
	So what are the fundamental issues? The difficulties that the CSA faces have been well documented in a range of areas, particularly backlogs and the building up of debt, and some of the information technology issues that we thought were teething problems turned out to be major defects.
	It was because we recognised the deep-seated nature of the problems that the agency faced that we asked Stephen Geraghty, following his appointment as the new chief executive in April last year, to undertake a root-and-branch review of the agency's operations. He has given us an extremely thorough and candid assessment of where the agency stands at present. Armed with that, we need to take a sensible look at how we can get the agency on to a stable footing; but it is important to remember that, in child support, going for quick fixes has a long history of not succeeding. Our imperative is to improve the service delivered to CSA   clients, so that children receive the maintenance that they deserve and non-compliant parents take responsibility for their children; but whatever we do in the future should not be allowed to disrupt the maintenance that already supports half a million children.

Frank Field: The hon. Gentleman says that Ministers have received that damning document from the new chief executive. Will we be able to see it before the Government present the House with their proposals for reform, or will access be restricted, as with the Liberal Democrats' reform programme?

James Plaskitt: The difference in this case is that the report we received from the chief executive has led to, or will shortly lead to, a statement to the House setting out in detail the Government's proposals for dealing with the CSA. That is in marked contrast with the Liberal Democrats' invisible document, which does not seem to contain any ideasalthough we do not know, because we cannot find it.
	Stephen Geraghty has given us his views on how we can address the agency's operational problems, and how significant improvements can be secured for its clients. Given the difficulties that I have described, it is right for us to take a proper and considered look at his conclusionsand, as I have said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make a statement to the House shortly.
	We need to find a solution to the agency's problems, because in many cases parents are just not facing up to their responsibilities to their children. Worse still, a significant number of parents actively avoid paying maintenance. Some go to extraordinary lengths to do so, leaving their jobs, constantly changing address or leaving the country as soon as the agency gets close. Whatever we do in the future, the fact remains that it is the overriding responsibility of non-resident parents to support their children financially. We need to revisit the fundamental questions of what we are trying to achieve and whether we have the right tools with which to do it. Where we do not have the right tools, or they are not in the right place, we need to put together a robust plan to fix the problemand that is exactly what we are doing.

Anne McIntosh: I congratulate the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) on securing the debate at such a timely point. I also congratulate the Minister, who spoke with heartfelt honesty.
	I should begin by declaring an interest. I began my professional life in Edinburgh, at the Scottish Bar, when the old system so aptly described by the Minister was in placeso I benefited financially and economically under that former system, but also in terms of being paid in arrears.
	We Conservatives remain vigorously in favour of the principle that absent parents should contribute to the maintenance of their children. I want also to associate myself with the remarks of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman)the Minister was good enough to quote him during recent parliamentary questionswho said that there is no easy solution. We are not looking for easy solutions, but I   was mildly surprised to discover that we did not have the benefit of in-depth solutions from the Liberal Democrats, who have called this debate, a point to which I shall return.
	I want also to record my personal gratitude to the staff of my local CSA. They are always at the end of a telephone line, but in one very disturbing case they met the absent father in question at my surgery. It was appropriate for the Minister to record his appreciation of the circumstances in which CSA staff have to workan appreciation that the whole House will share. We must not lose sight of that point, because all too often they are exposed to criticism. I will not go over ground that has already been covered in this regard, but there are a number of issues that the Minister might want to comment on later. We remain wedded, as I said, to the principle that absent parents should contribute, but as the Minister identified, we need to improve on current practice.
	The Government's amendment to the motion states that
	the Government will shortly set out its conclusions on the right way forward following the Chief Executive's review of the operation of the Child Support Agency.
	We know, because the Minister was good enough to tell us, that that review has been with his Department for a matter of weeksperhaps a little over a month. It would assist today's debate if a date were put on its publication. Will it be published before the end of this month? As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr.   Field) said, it might help if we took a two-stage approachif the House had the benefit of seeing the review before the Minister and his Department produced their proposals. Here, I will tease the Liberal Democrats by asking that their document be made available on their website. We visited it as recently as yesterday, but we were disappointed to discovergiven the spirit of open government in which the Liberal Democrats want to operate, and given that they are on record as saying that they want to be a party of governmentthat they do not want to share their proposals with us in time for this debate.
	Why was the CSA's chief executive felt to be the most appropriate person, working through the heads of the Minister's Department, to conduct this review? We agree with the Minister that it was right to conduct a root-and-branch review, but we also agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that it should have been conducted less secretively, so that the House could have had the benefit of seeing the proposals. It should have   been independent, more impartial and external to the Departmentin the long term, the Department and the House would have benefited from such an approach.

David Laws: The hon. Lady is making some extremely important points about airing the review. Does she agree that it would have helped if the Government had told us whether the review examined seriously other options for the agency, instead of simply improving it as it stands?

Anne McIntosh: That is not for me to say, but I should be very surprised to discover that the Department did not produce other options. There has been some talk of the Australian model, but I should point out that I do not entirely associate myself with the proposals of the hon. Member for Yeovil concerning the Inland Revenue scheme. One thing that the Revenue and the CSA share is that their computer systems have had not just teething problems, but major defects. I should be loth to switch from an agency with such problems to another with similar ones. However, there are parts of the Australian model that commend themselves to the House, and if the Government were to introduce such proposals they would enjoy a lot of support. One example is having one caseworker per couple or per family. Together with tax credits, this is the issue that arises most frequently with hon. Members, and it touches not just on families across the country but on many employers, and causes them considerable concern.

Frank Field: The hon. Lady should not think that there will be substantial structural reform by establishing caseworkers. We want to get away from a system that treats individuals as though they are receiving, and we are computing, a benefit. The non-payment of maintenance ought to be met by imposing a tax. That would be crude, but surely we want to move to a system where, for one child, there is an additional X pence on the standard rate of tax, for two children, two times X and for three children, three times X. We should not take into account any circumstances such as how far one travels to work. We do not do that when computing tax rates, nor should we do so for the failure to pay maintenance, which is about paying tax. Before the hon. Lady dismisses the Inland Revenue, she should be aware that we are asking it not to run a social service, but to impose an additional tax rate on those who refuse to pay maintenance.

Anne McIntosh: I consider myself castigated in terms of calling the person a caseworker. I agree with the right   hon. Gentleman. However, the CSA's quarterly summary for September 2005 states that the CSA received 5 million telephone calls and answered only 4.2 million, which is where much of the frustration arises. We often telephone on behalf of constituents, but they generally do the telephoning and it is a source of enormous frustration that there is not the same person dealing with the same family each time.
	The Minister will appreciate our fundamental concern that it costs 12 million to run the enforcement unit, yet it is recovering only 8 million. This is an area that the Government will wish to address in the immediate future with their reforms. The Minister was admirably honest in explaining the administrative chaos and the failure to enforce maintenance payments. All of us will be able to speak with much more authority when we see the fruits of the chief executive's review.

Michael Weir: My experience of enforcement suggests that the figures might be misleading. In many cases the enforcement procedure starts and the parent subject to the procedure makes a couple of payments and then stops. There seems to be a huge delay in restarting the enforcement procedure, and the parent who should be receiving the money gets no benefit from it.

Anne McIntosh: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point. That may be the problem, but the Liberal Democrats have not come up with the solution. To pass the whole assessment and collection process to the Inland Revenue is flawed in one fundamental way, and that concerns the self-employed. I will take them out of the equation for the purposes of this argument, but even if an absent parent were in full-time employment, it will only be at the end of the yearparticularly if he or she is in seasonal work or there are fluctuations in incomewhen the P35, and not, we hope, the P45, is issued that the Inland Revenue will be in a position to know what that person's income is before an assessment can be made. That is a fundamental flaw that I believe cannot be overcome.

John MacDougall: Does the hon. Lady agree that the CSA's goals were not clear when it was set up and that there was confusion about who should be targeted? In my constituency, the people who do not get caught are those who are on the move all the time. Agency staff try to build a case to catch a person, only to find that the person has moved on. They have to start all over again, and that is very frustrating. One case in my area has lasted four years. That is not the norm, but when we talk about improvements we must remember where we started from. The Government have made significant improvements in the CSA, but the trouble is that such a poor start was made that they are not catching up with the problems.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a speech. Interventions should be brief.

Anne McIntosh: I am sure that we would all like to give some thought to what the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Mr. MacDougall) said, but the Minister was refreshingly honest about the problems to do with the assessment. He said that the computer problems were not teething problems, but resulted from fundamental defects in the system.
	Collection management is another problem, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes noted. Still another is enforcement: inevitably, some people cannot pay, while others will not. At Work and Pensions questions last week, I made the point that the CSA is extremely good at chasing those absent parents who had been identified and who were making payments, but that difficulties arose when such people had to be reassessed as a result of changing circumstances. The CSA was set up with all-party support. I am not convinced that it is meeting its targets in respect of finding absent parents who do not wish to be found. I am sure that the Prime Minister and the Minister will agree that there is much room for improvement in that regard.

Philip Dunne: My hon. Friend may be about to deal with the question of enforcement, which is the key to improving the CSA's performance. Absent parents who refuse to pay often go underground and become part of the black economy. HMRC is unlikely to be the solution to that problem, as it is unlikely to capture such people anyway.
	I do not want to make a speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but a case in my constituency has gone on for six years. The sum involved is 18,000 and the person who should pay it was the cheque writer in the company for which he worked. He refused to authorise the payments, turned self-employed and then went into the black economy. Many hon. Members will be aware of similar stories. My argument is that the Minister must deal with improving the CSA's powers of enforcement.

Anne McIntosh: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes his point very well. The CSA's failure, or inability, in respect of enforcement is the key problem, and the Government must tackle it. The agency's failure to enforce maintenance payments from defaulting absent parents has left parents with care unable to support their children.
	There have also been administrative errors, as the Minister rightly noted. About 25 per cent. of parents with care are not getting the moneys to which they are entitled, and thus depend on benefits such as the absent parent payment. The Minister also mentioned the problem of uncollected payments, but other difficulties include incorrect payments and the failed audit. The independent case examiner has alerted the House to the   massive increase in the number of complaints in that regard.

Stewart Hosie: Many hon. Members have set out the various complex issues that can arise in any case, but does the hon. Lady agree that the rise in the number of complaints might also result from the straightforward cases that appear to go wrong? I have constituency cases in which absent parents have made their maintenance payments diligently and on time, often for several years. However, CSA assessments have not taken account of those payments, with the result that the figure set for arrears is entirely wrong and the complaints start rolling in. Does she agree that at the heart of the problem is the fact that the CSA is failing with simple cases as well as complex ones?

Anne McIntosh: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and I hope that it will be acted on. Sometimes the simplest cases can turn into the most complicated.

Danny Alexander: The hon. Lady has set out clearly some of the problems of the CSA. Does she agree that
	it is not properly suited to carry out its task.?
	If so, what alternative proposals does the Conservative party have for its replacement?

Anne McIntosh: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I shall conclude with a four-point Conservative plan[Hon. Members: Ooh!] That promise may come back to haunt me. Our plan is much punchier than the rather short motion, which sets out the problem in inane terms. The motion states that the House
	agrees with the Prime Minister
	although I find it very difficult to do that
	that the Child Support Agency has lost the confidence of the public, that its basic structural problems remain and that it is not properly suited to carry out its task.
	The Minister has identified the task ahead, and key to delivering on that task is the computer system. Where we part company from the Liberal Democratsit is why they will remain the minor third party for some substantial time to comeis on the point that if the computer system provided by a company, in this case EDS, is not working for one agency, it is unlikely to transfer to another without problems. I also have reservations because assessments of maintenance payments cannot be made if one has to wait for the P35 at the end of the year. That will cause further delays.

David Laws: Does the hon. Lady accept the point that we are making in recommending that HM Revenue and Customs take over the CSA, which is the point that others, such as Resolution, have made? It is that the siting of the agency within HMRC will remove duplication and improve the flow of data about income between the agency and HMRC. Is not that the essential point?

Anne McIntosh: There is another approach that I shall come to in a moment, if I may test the hon. Gentleman's patience.
	The Minister was right to say that the agency had had more than just teething problems with the computer system. It was delivered late, some 18 months after the original date. It continues to fail families and, as recently as January 2005, 250,000 cases were stuck in the system. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman said that the figure was now 300,000. The computer system was described by the Work and Pensions Committee as defective and the then Committee Chairman said that such systems
	are an appalling waste of public money and cause distress to thousands of people.
	I agree with the Minister that we are where we are,   and we must now move forward. In addition to the problems caused by the computer system are those caused by migration. Indeed, the Committee's report asked the Minister to put a date on migration, but I   think that we are still waiting. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the   hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), can give us a date when she winds up. The transfer of customers from the old to the present computer base is also causing delay and concern. Figures from the CSA September quarterly statistics show that the current case load is enormousI will not even mention the numberand   that 65 per cent. of cases are in the old scheme, with   35 per cent. in the new scheme, while 306,000, or 21 per cent., have not yet even progressed to the point   of   calculation and assessment; and that 261,000 applications in the new scheme have not been cleared.

James McGovern: I, too, am intrigued by the old system versus the new one. I have many constituents sitting impatiently in the old system waiting to go over to the new one. Does the hon. Lady agree that once the new system is up and running it will ease the burden and that far fewer cases will go through the clerical route? That was originally intended to be the fallback position, but has become the norm. Pressure on the system would be eased, as would pressure on the hard-pressed staff about whom we have heard.

Anne McIntosh: I do not know whether the Minister will agree but I am rapidly coming to the view that I   should advise constituents to stay on the old system until substantial progress has been made under the new one. Perhaps the Minister would like to give a date for migration during this debate, because false hopes have been raised for constituents of all Members. Short of a date, remarkable improvements need to be made in handling the computer system. I hope, too, that the Minister responding to the debate will at least mention the 0.8 million telephone calls that have not been returned. There may be a good reason for that, but House should know what it is.

Michael Weir: There is much misinformation among the agency's clients about migration. Even for people who migrate from the old to the new system there are tapering payments, and as it takes so long to migrate, many who do so will never obtain the payments that they would have received under the new system due to the age of their children.

Anne McIntosh: The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, and I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to respond to it.
	The Minister told us about the catalogue of missed targets. The Select Committee report showed that not one of the targets had been reached. Paragraph 31 stated:
	The Committee believes that the failure to achieve any of the Ministerial targets for the new scheme is totally unacceptable and in the opinions expressed forcefully by One Parent Families represents nothing less than a severe breach of trust.
	The Committee related that failure to the increasing incidence of complaints to the independent case examiner.
	As I said, we do not expect that the solution will be easy or that there can be a quick fix, but we are not convinced that the Inland Revenue is the answer. Its computer system shares many of the faults and defects of the CSA system and the Revenue has the disadvantage of not knowing a person's total income until the year end.
	The Conservatives want to help parents with care and to set people free, thereby saving money for the benefits system, and thus the state, while making parents live up to their responsibilities. Obviously, two parents are always better than one, but the CSA has to deal with the situation to the best of its ability and I am sure that the House agrees that the system should be improved. The   question is what those improvements should be, and I should like to go through them.
	The case for the CSA was agreed with all-party support when it was set up in 1993. Wherever possible, children should be supported financially by both parents, rather than by the taxpayer, and the agency should play a key role in providing financial support to enable lone parents to get out of the benefit trap and into work.
	I should like to place on record the reason we believe that the Liberal Democrat policy, in so far as it was set out

David Laws: What about the four-point plan?

Anne McIntosh: I am coming to that, if the hon. Gentleman will just be patient.
	We obviously look forwardI am sure that all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate will do so enthusiasticallyto visiting the Liberal Democrat website to find out when the document might be in place. However, we believe that changing the responsible Department is not the answer. It is not enough simply to point out that the Australian child support system operates under the Taxation Office and works well for reasons that the Minister correctly identified. The Australian Child Support Agency owes its success to a number of other factors that are lacking in the UK system, including continuity of case management. I   hope that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead will accept that, rather than the point about caseworkers, the continuity of case management and having access to one person who is in charge of the case are the important factors.
	As I said earlier, we already know that the CSA is seriously struggling. The Government are struggling to administer the tax credit system, but I will not go there today because we are all as familiar with the tax credits scenario as we are with the child support system. The well-publicised IT system failure led to 1.9 million people being overpaid and a further 700,000 were unpaid. The Inland Revenue already has collection problems, and the National Audit Office has commented that the need for more hands to sort out the tax credit problem has left the PAYE system under-staffed.
	The hon. Member for Yeovil has criticised the Inland Revenue's performance and, as recently as yesterdayI know that a day is a long time in politicscalled for an independent investigation into tax credit fraud. We are slightly bemused about how he can support giving more responsibility to that Department when he questioned its performance as recently as yesterday.

David Laws: Is the hon. Lady really saying that she has a fundamental objection to the collection of child maintenance resting with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, or is she simply saying that, because that Department has problems at present, now is not the time to make the transition?

Anne McIntosh: I personally have a fundamental problem with transferring responsibility from the Department, for the reasons that I have spent the past few minutes setting out. Computer problems are common to both Departments, so nothing would be gained by such a transferone set of harassed staff would be swapped for another. Another fundamental issue is that we cannot expect the person who is awaiting an assessment for payment from the absent parentthat is, the parent with careto wait until the year end before the Inland Revenue can work out what the absent parent's total income was in that year. For those reasonsthe computer issue and the income issuesuch a transfer is simply not the way to proceed.

Martin Horwood: I wish to comment quickly on two points that the hon. Lady has made. She compares the tax credit system with the CSA's problems, but surely the problem with tax credits is that underpayment and overpayment are built into the system. That is not a matter of organisational failure in the way that we suggest is the case with the CSA. She implies that the computer problems are comparable to those in the Inland Revenue. However, the Inland Revenue deals with an enormously larger number of cases and I receive almost no complaints about its systems, certainly not from my surgery case load.

Anne McIntosh: I should be very happy to share with the hon. Gentleman the complaints that are made to me about the system. I have personally dealt with a number of cases in which the absent parent's assessment of what he is due to pay has changed, but the CSA has simply not been able to react quickly enough to change the assessment and the parent has been overpaying. It is incredibly difficult to recover that money, particularly when the absent parent's income fluctuates.
	In a spirit of helpfulness and co-operation and in the consensual nature of the debate, I wish to set out what we believe the policies must focus on. First, resolving chronic IT problems must be a priority, but it is difficult to do that for the reasons that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and others have set out. It is difficult for the House to have a full understanding of the situation, especially because it has not had sight of the Child Support Agency IT contract and hon. Members are thus not aware of the full nature of the problem. I make a plea to the Minister and the Department to give us sight of the contract so that we can find out whether the problems are more contractual, or related to delivery.
	Secondly, we would like to improve management. We should rely heavily on the conclusions of the Select Committee report from January 2005. The report focuses on the lack of monitoring, supervision and training of management, and we owe it to the CSA staff to give them all those three things. I think that the Minister would not disagree that the agency lacks leadership, direction and an ethos that would allow the problems to be resolved. The Government need to address the problem, and then the new management must sort out the internal administrative mayhem that is causing so much confusion for parents and staff alike.
	There should be greater focus on compliance and enforcement. I disassociate myself from the gimmick of tagging. I believe that there have been only eight cases in which a driving licence has been suspended and only five cases in the past year in which a driving licence has been physically removed. Why have the Government been so slow to use the clear enforcement proceduresthe punishmentsthat are already in place?

Natascha Engel: On enforcement, what is the Conservative party's position on cherry-picking? That is inevitable when there is a huge backlog of cases, because a case manager will choose those that are easiest to deal with. I know of two cases that highlight the situation. I   can trump the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) because I know of a case that has been going on for 11 years. The woman is owed the huge amount of 20,000I do not know whether anyone can top thatand the man is self-employed. He is in and out of the labour market, moves house a lot and has a lot of different partners, so it is difficult to find him and the agency is not prepared to make much of an effort. However, the CSA is still chasing a man who is voluntarily overpaying his ex-partner, even though it has evidence that he is paying the money, so there is an administrative error that is not being dealt with. How would the Conservatives deal with very easy and very hard cases?

Anne McIntosh: We will not flinch from making difficult choices. When I read last year's excellent Work and Pensions Committee report, I was struck by the fact , as the Minister set out, that we are asking agency staff and officers to work in difficult conditions. Two ladies from   the CSA who came along to my surgery were virtually threatened by an otherwise mild-mannered gentlemanhe was mild mannered when he came into the surgery, but certainly not when he went out. Training, monitoring and supervision are of key importance.

Brian Binley: It seems to me that although we can talk about changing systems, we often forget that the thing works at a minute level. Our caseworkers require a great deal of sensitivity and finesse. We often forget to put training in place to allow that sensitivity and finesse to be displayed for our benefit, as taxpayers. Will my hon. Friend urge the Government to address the matter because we have not spent the necessary time on that delicate area?

Anne McIntosh: I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. He speaks with great passion and with his experience in business, so I hope that the Government will act on what he says.
	Thirdly, we should foster better relationships between agency staff and both parentsthe parent with care and the absent parent. The agency must allow assigned staff members to establish continuity of contact with both parents, instead of having a situation in which parents deal with a new member of staff each time they contact the agency. In its January 2005 report, the Select Committee rightly identified that approach as the one that works so well in the Australian system.
	Fourthly, we would identify the functions that could be better provided by the private sector. That idea has not yet been mentioned in the debate, but I hope that it will find support on both sides of the House. Key public services should be free at the point of delivery, but there is no reason why they should not be provided by the private sector. We must consider whether some of the agency's work could be carried out by others more suited to the taskfor example, the enforcement function.
	We have had a good start to the debate and I look forward to hearing other speakers. I hope that the Minister will see fit to share the conclusions of the review with the House as soon as possible, perhaps even before we are told the nature of the Government's proposed solutions.

Frank Field: I, like other hon. Members, congratulate the Liberal Democrats on choosing for today's debate a subject that affects too many of our constituents, who will be following the debate with considerable interest.
	It was a pleasure to sit on the Government Benches listening to the Minister treat the House of Commons as though it is composed of grown-ups rather than children. His speech was serious and considered.
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh); this is the first time that I have heard her open a debate for the official Opposition and I am a great admirer of her skills. I fear, however, that she wrote her speech before she had heard how careful the Minister was in what he said and did not say. The way in which she committed the Conservative party to the Child Support Agency reminds me of a comment made by David Steel, now Lord Steel, when a prominent Liberal supporter left the Liberals to join another party: he said that he thought it was the first time in history that a rat had a joined a sinking ship. That may well be the position in which the Conservatives find themselves when they read the Minister's speech carefully.
	Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to the staff of the CSA. I have not seen the figures that the Minister has showing an increase, and a planned increase, in the number of staff working for the CSA, but I was going to suggest a reason why their number was falling. When the agency was created, people from the private sector and the public sector joined it with huge enthusiasm because they thought it had a desirable objectiveto ensure that people pay maintenance when maintenance is dueand that they would get considerable job satisfaction from working for it. Given that we have provided them with a broken-backed IT system, it is hugely to their credit that so many of them continue to try to provide a first-class service and turn up each day to do probably the most stressful job in the public sector.
	I was heartened by the Minister's speech. The Government now have the chief executive's report, although the Minister has wisely decided not to let us see it before the Government have come up with their proposals. I would be very surprised if the chief executive did not accept that his agency has deep-seated problems, which the Minister set out in a serious way, and if he did not accompany his acceptance of that analysis with a request for more money. I hope that the Government do not follow the line that the Opposition have advocated. I hope that they do not believe that the service can be patched up and that another huge tranche of taxpayers' money should be directed to an end that I   believe is unachievable.
	If the chief executive wants another 500 million of taxpayers' money, I would prefer it to be given to the mothers and children who do not get their maintenance. We should not try to find the end of the rainbow and think that EDSif only we feed the company more moneywill come up with an IT system that is fit for purpose.
	So when we hear the Government statement, I hope that we will get two things from them. First, how can we improve this broken-backed system to provide a better service for claimants in the foreseeable future? There is no way in which long-term reform can be introduced at a moment's notice. Secondly, how do we turn our attention to that serious long-term reform?
	Some of the contributions have already suggested to the Minister short-term measures that might help the agency perform better. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) suggested taking out   of the day-to-day management of the systemor   attempt to manage the systemwhat she euphemistically called complicated cases. Birkenhead constituents would have another name for fathers with multiple cases before the CSA. If those cases were dealt with by a special unit, that might help the running of the rest of the agency. My constituents might also suggest some sanctions that should be applied to such gentlemen, who might have up to 10 children by different partners, but parliamentary protocol prevents me from suggesting what that solution might be.
	As a further suggestion, is it possible to move over from the old system to the new system all those who, under the old system, have nil assessments? Most of those would be people who were on benefit when the assessment was made. Under the new system, all of them will be required to make a small contribution. Could not they as a group be moved over, or is the agency's IT system such that it cannot talk to the IT system of Jobcentre Plus? Is that the real reason why some of the obvious ways of immediately and significantly improving the performance of such a broken-backed agency are not encouraged?
	When the hon. Member for Vale of York was advocating the private sector, I thought that she would roll up her sleeves and make some suggestions. As she failed to do so, let me come to her aid. We should look to the private sector to help the agency trace parents for   whom we have no addresses. Perhaps foolishly, I   suggested in the House that we should call such personnel bounty hunters. I did not realise that the then Secretary of State would find that too shocking a suggestion. In this country we usually speak of bailiffs. Surely there is nothing to be lost by telling the private sector, If you can find these people, you get paid. If you don't find them, there is no fee. Finding them and getting the first payments made will attract a very substantial sum indeed.
	Those are three suggestions that Ministers might consider when trying to patch up what is recognised in two parts of the House, if not the third, to be a broken-backed system that will not be made to work and is not for fit for purpose.
	When I read the Order Paper this morning, I had considerable sympathy for the position in which Balfour found himself when he led the Tory party, which was riven asunder by the issue of tariff reformso much so that one Liberal Member of the day, hearing the then Prime Minister again trying to appease both sides of his party, said that the Prime Minister had once again come to the House and nailed his colours to the fence.
	Looking at the Order Paper, I wondered how anybody could not vote for the Liberal Democrat motion. I then read our amendment and wondered how anybody could not vote for that. It is the first time that our side has responded with a degree of wit when tabling amendments to the main motion. I hope that the Liberal Democrats will vote for the amendment, and that our side will pay the compliment of voting for the substantive motion.

David Laws: Is the right hon. Gentleman encouraging Labour Members to support our motion when it is put to the House?

Frank Field: Labour Members should support the Government amendment, but if it is not carried we should support the Liberal Democrat motion.
	The serious message that we want the Government to take away from this debate is that the problems with the CSA are so deep-seated that radical solutions are required when the Government introduce their programme of reform. Although the number of people coming to my constituency surgery to complain about the CSA has dropped, it is not because the CSA is working betterit is because those people have given up hope of obtaining redress.
	I approach this debate with sadness and shame. I am sad that I did not persuade my side to embrace radical reform in 1998 and accept that we could not patch up the system and that all new money would be wasted. I am ashamed because when I walk around the market in my constituency, people who came to me with CSA cases when their children were young no longer talk to mein many cases, those children have left school, but their mothers have not received a penny from the CSA. I am ashamed that I have not been more effective in this place in achieving the radical reform of the CSA, because we could have brought hope to those families. After the Government announce their programme of reform, I   hope that we will not have to hang our heads in shame at how the service performs, but it is only by thinking outside the box that that might become a possibility.
	When the Government make their announcement, I   hope that they say that they are seriously considering using the Inland Revenue rather than adopting the casework approach favoured by the Opposition of taking complicated cases with all their details over to the Inland Revenue system. If we move to an Inland Revenue system for enforcing maintenance, we must realise that it will be crude. We cannot build in all sorts of circumstances for the Revenue to take into account before it computes maintenance, because we will move from working out a benefit to working out a tax rate.
	The Government should examine converting maintenance payments to x pence in addition to the standard rate of tax for each single child, 2x pence for two children, 3x pence for three children and so on, in which case we would not have to lobby the agency about special circumstances that it should take into account before our constituents pay maintenance. Such a system would be crude, but it would be more effective, because more money would be delivered. It would also allow CSA staff to get on with what I thought they would spend the vast majority of their time doing when we first debated the agencytrying to ensure that the will of this House is enforced when it comes to supporting children.
	I want to say again how impressed I was by my hon. Friend the Minister's contribution, which it would pay the Opposition a huge dividend to read carefully tomorrow. From what the Minister has said, the Government have clearly moved on from the bunker mentality that they must defend the agency at all coststhe staff know that the Government are sympathetic given their task. The shame that I feel when I greet constituents who are yet to receive a penny in support is not because the staff have failed, but because this House of Commons has failed to set up an agency that at least has a chance of success, which is what I will look for when the Government introduce their big reform programme.

John Barrett: I am sure that I am not the only Member in the Chamber to be experiencing a sense of dj vu. With the possible exception of newly elected Members, many of us have been here before. We have heard different Members stand up and speak on behalf of their constituents and seen different faces fielding questions at the Dispatch Box.
	Sadly, however, things have not improved. The Child Support Agency is still failing in its principal aimto ensure that children whose parents do not live together are financially supported in a fair and just manner. The last time we debated the issue in this place, the CSA was failing to meet that aim. I would have liked nothing better than to come here today to congratulate the Minister, on behalf of my constituents, on achieving real progress and improvements in the system. However, the Minister will not be shocked to learn that I am unable to do so. The CSA has been a constant source of pain and misery for my constituents from the day on which I was elected in 2001 right up to my most recent surgery appointment last Friday. I would be hard pushed to say that I have noticed any real improvement in the system in the past five years. For as long as the CSA remains, hon. Members will continue to see problem cases in their surgeries and Ministers should expect to respond time and again to debates such as this.
	I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) on his excellent introductory speech. In the Liberal Democrat 10-point plan that he mentioned, it is all summed up in the first sentence, which, under the heading, Proposed Solutions, says that we believe that the existing agency should be scrapped. There are nine more detailed points, which I am sure that the Minister will mention when winding up.
	Hon. Members on both sides of the House will recall the cross-party support that greeted the Child Support Act 1991 and the subsequent creation of the CSA. When it was established, it was supposed to be a mechanism for fairness and justice; in reality, it has proved to be a failing organisation that is ill-suited to its task and unable to help those who need it most. The unavoidable fact is that not only is it not working as well as it should, but that for many people it has never worked well, and   for others it has been a complete disaster. The figures tell their own story. In the past four years, there have been 35,000 cases of maladministration. Unpaid maintenance is running at 1.7 billion. However, I will not concentrate too much on the figures, because we will   become embroiled in squabbles about their authenticity, partly because we have heard them all before. The more important reason why we must not allow quarrels over statistics to hide the real stories lies in the details of those stories of hardship and misery caused to those dependent on the CSA.
	Perhaps the most extraordinary case that I have come across was that of one of my constituents, whose case is rumbling on five years after her original application. In 2000, she gave the CSA all the necessary documents. After hearing nothing for several weeks, she contacted it again, only to be told that it had no documents about her and she should send them off again. A few days later, she received a letter from the CSA returning the very documents that it had told her that it did not have and asking for more information. She phoned the Hastings office to be told that it was dealt with at Falkirk; Falkirk told her that it was being dealt with at Hastings. Such stories do little to inspire confidence in the system. Eventually, my constituent's papers were found in the Hastings office and a maintenance calculation was made, but no payments were ever forthcoming. The CSA kept on adding the missed payments on to arrears. Unsurprisingly, those payments were not made either.
	Two years after the original application was made, the CSA got round to making a liability order to the sheriff's office. It took another year for a public auction of the ex-partner's office goods to be organised. At that auction, he handed over a 1,000 cheque to the CSA, but it was no surprise to hear later that it bounced.
	While all this was taking place, my constituent rightly queried the exact amount of child maintenance awarded by the agency. She advised the CSA that her former husband had a variety of properties for which he received income and that he was in full-time work. Yet those figures were not included in the CSA's calculation. To this day, it appears that it never carried out proper investigations to verify the former wife's claims.
	Such delays are bad enough but the case highlights two further systemic problems with the CSA that I wish to raise. First, the agency often takes the former partner's declaration of income at face value. That is   often a particular problemto which the Under-Secretary referredwhen the former partner is self-employed and it is difficult to verify the profits and income independently.
	I came across another case that involved a former husband who claimed that his income was 100 a week, on which the CSA calculated maintenance. Yet he had a new car, had recently been on holiday and had bought a new house. Is it possible that the CSA accepts the figures too easily and does not conduct proper investigations, which would find that no one who lives on 100 a week could have that lifestyle?
	That leads to the second problem: the former partnersthe womenoften have to become detectives. Lack of action by the agency means that the parents with the care of their children must sometimes turn into private investigators. They have to prove that the income of the non-resident parent is higher than is declared, rather than the non-resident parent having to prove that their income is as low as they claim. That simply cannot be right.
	Last Friday, I met a constituent, Jacqueline Peterson, to discuss her continuing problems with the CSA. Mrs.   Peterson was divorced in 2003 and has had to follow up her former husband's activity. He is now remarried to a Russian internet bride, has bought a brand new hotel and a new house and runs around in a Mercedes, yet his CSA calculations are based on his income of less than 5 a week. Mrs. Peterson has been given no award. Perhaps the least that could be done is the withdrawal of his driving licence to stop him running about in his Mercedes.
	In my experience, that is not an isolated incident. In too many cases, the CSA has taken the word of one parentoften the fatheras gospel and left the other, who is inevitably the mother, to chase up further details. She has to fight effectively to clear her name and is guilty until proven innocent. The CSA was not supposed to be about that. The fact that those women do not go screaming from roof tops, crane tops or Buckingham palace does not mean that they do not suffer or are any less deserving of justice for themselves and their children.
	I appreciate that other hon. Members are keen to speak and I shall therefore watch the time. Let me briefly mention IT. Other hon. Members have referred to the Work and Pensions Committee report, which was fairly damning about the new computer system. The costs and the cases have been well documented. Like other hon. Members, I do not believe that the problem is due to the front-line staff. Last year, I visited the CSA call centre in Falkirk and it was clear to me that the staff are not the villains in the story. Staff turnover and sickness rates are testament to the pressures under which they operate. Unfortunately, the price of the excess pressure is paid by people who rely on the system.
	What is the latest position regarding staffing levels at the CSA? The Under-Secretary's figures do not compute exactly with those given in written parliamentary answers to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil.
	Last year, I was given information about the company behind the much-maligned IT system. I am sure that the Under-Secretary will understand my concern at being told that the bottleneck of cases, which clogs up the computer system, was not caused purely by the system but by the Government's unwillingness to employ the necessary number of staff because of their fixation with reducing the number of civil servants. I was informed that IT suppliers were more than willing to take the rap for the CSA failings in order to secure far more lucrative contracts in future, including providing the IT system for the proposed identity card scheme.
	Although it is right to understand why the CSA has failed and to apportion blame if necessary, that does not   change the fact that the system fails those whose well-being it is supposed to safeguard. It does not matter   whether the Under-Secretary decides to blame staff management or the previous Conservative Government. The harsh reality is that the CSA is riddled with failings. There is little point in giving a building a new lick of paint if the foundations have been poorly laid. The system makes life worse for people who are already in difficult circumstances. Indeed, I have heard claims that the CSA may be the biggest administrative disaster in the history of the welfare state.
	The Minister will know of my party's long-standing policy to abolish the CSA and to move its assessment and enforcement functions to the Inland Revenue. Given the amount of cross-checking with the Inland Revenue that the CSA needs to dobut does not always carry outthat would seem an entirely practical and sensible solution. I accept that the situation will not be remedied overnight. However, this is a serious proposition and could provide the kind of government that this Labour Administration are so fond of. The fact is that far too many children are not getting the money that they need and deserve. Clearly, that is often the fault of the absent parent, but the Minister must nevertheless accept that, in too many casestens of thousands of themchildren are not getting the help that they need because of the direct failure of the CSA to act quickly, effectively or at all. I keep hearing about the Prime Minister's eagerness to secure a political legacy. If he is looking for ideas, might I suggest that putting the CSA out of its misery would be a good place to start?

Dari Taylor: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I should like to remind the House that more than 600,000 children are benefiting from child maintenance payments today as a result of the Child Support Agency's work. We should not drop the agency as carelessly and indifferently as has been proposed by the Liberal Democrats. I should like to put it on the record that I have worked with many CSA officers over nearly nine years. They have visited my office in Stockton from Falkirk, and delivered in a careful and considered way to many of my constituents. They have resolved many of their problems, and it is important to remember that if   we carelessly underestimate and undermine their profession, we will reap the reward.
	My first real statement to the House this afternoon is about the effect of family breakdowns on children. The CSA does not cause those breakdowns, and I am well aware that it cannot mend them. I chair the all-party group on adoption and fostering and I take a keen interest in children's policy. I should like to remind the House of some of the most hideous situations that can arise when a father walks out. Children are left, suddenly and without explanation, and they do not understand why. They feel totally unloved. That situation becomes infinitely worse when the child begins to realise not only that their father has walked out95 per cent. of non-resident parents who have walked out are menbut that he is now deliberately going to evade his responsibilities. Such situations have a marked effect on children, not only at the time but throughout their life.
	Children often have to come to terms with the fact that their father is still living in the same town while claiming not to. He might actually be avoiding meeting them, yet they know that he is there. I have evidence of cases in which the father works abroad for a period of time then comes back, yet, as far as his responsibilities to his children are concerned, his family are invisible to him. This is a serious and significant problem, but we should not forget that more than 600,000 children are now being supported by the CSA.

David Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrats demonstrate a touching faith in suggesting that the obligation for the non-resident parentusually the fatherto notify changes of employment and residence would have a significant effect? Does that not underestimate the ingenuity and deviousness of many non-resident parents? Does it not   also fail to recognise the nature of the economyself-employment, agency work, casual or freelance workin which many of them work? They often lack the kind of permanent employment that could provide the necessary links to the CSA.

Dari Taylor: I could not agree with my hon. Friend more. One of the most difficult issues is that some men are capable of becoming completely invisible to those who would ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities.
	I speak from experience this afternoon. We have heard it said time and again that the CSAwhich, implicitly, means its officersis totally failing. However, I suggest that it is the determinedly clever menwho know all the tricks in the book and who will evade whatever system we introducewho are the problem. We have given the CSA's officers an impossibly difficult task to perform. The Minister spoke earlier with great care, and I was pleased to hear the cautious and careful way in which he was prepared to suggest reforms to the CSA. I want to suggest to him that the agency should separate the families in which the men are deliberately evading their responsibilities, and take them out of the system altogether. Let us then look at a system that could specifically respond to those circumstances.
	Alternatively, we should give the CSA investigatory powers to ensure that it can authorise surveillance to produce the evidence to stop the evasion. I want to persuade my hon. Friend the Minister that such an approach is essential.

Jo Swinson: The hon. Lady says that part of the problem is the determination of some non-resident parents to evade making payments. One way of forcing such parents to pay is to issue a liability order. However, a key problem with the system is that, while a liability order is progressing and someone is paying off their arrears, they cannot be made to pay their regular monthly payments. Arrears therefore continue to build up, and further applications have to be made for liability orders. Does the hon. Lady accept that non-resident parents are not the only problem, and that these basic flaws in the system also play a part?

Dari Taylor: I agree with the hon. Lady. I would not for a minute want to stand here and say that the system had integrity. It has many problems. However, CSA officers are handling 1.4 million cases. That figure grows exponentially every year, yet everyone wants their own case to be handled immediately. The system does not have integrity, but I am delighted that my Government are reviewing it and I hope that we shall come up with solutions that all of us can live with.
	It is crucial that we all speak from our own experience, and I have had nearly nine years' experience of handling problems with the CSA, in different ways at different times. I must stress to the Minister that investigatory powers and significant resources should be given to the CSA. It should have the right to pay for surveillance activity. It should have the ability to follow up leads, for example, and to access people's mobile phone records.
	Many of the women I speak to have expressed their enormous distress at being hounded on their mobile phones because their former partner has their number. I   tell them to change their SIM card, but that is easy for me to say. I have an income, so I can afford to do that. Most of these women are stuck, and cannot afford the cost of changing their number. They are therefore resistant to the idea of getting rid of their phone, even though the former partners are hounding them. We ask the police to check a mobile phone's records, but they say that they need to be paid to do so. The CSA has no ability to pay the police to check mobile phone records. I want it to be able to say to the Inland Revenue, We want this information now. We want this person to be tracked. But it does not have the power to authorise that. The Minister has stated today that there are problems of enforcement, and of course I agree with him. However, we cannot talk about enforcement in a vacuum. We must examine the way in which investigations should proceed.

Frank Field: May I make a plea to my hon. Friend, whose argument I am following carefully? Will she make a comparison between what happens in our local authorities when people do not pay their council tax and what happens with the CSA? In Wirral, people who do not pay their council tax go before the court. Even if they do not turn up, a charge is made against them, and the bailiffs are then sent in to recover the money. Why should we expect CSA staff to take on the role of bailiff? There is a service there; surely we want to embrace it.

Dari Taylor: My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point.
	I want to move on. Many people speak as though the   old system, which is extremely complex and dysfunctional, is the problem and the new system will, somewhere along the line, give us opportunities. I do not think that anyone has said that in the Chamber this afternoon. Of course, many fathers say it to me because they think they will be paying less, but the people involved in only 12 of my cases under the old system want to be on the new one. I have a multitude of new cases that remain up in the air because we are struggling to get the appropriate evidence to make the errant father pay up.
	I want carefully and without naming names to outline two cases that are so valuable in terms of what I believe we need to be doing. Mrs. X was married for eight and a half years. Her husband left her; she had a son of six. The child is now 16 and she is owed 50,000 in arrears. This is an abysmal situation. The husband, Mr. X, claims to earn 22,000. The fact is that he works for an American company in Dubai and earns 52,000. He lives in a house worth 300,000 and has a mortgage for 215,000. That is evidence, but we cannot get it on   paper. Because we cannot present that evidence on paper, we cannot get that man to pay up. In two years, Mr. X will have worked it brilliantly. The child will be 18 and there will be no more responsibility. It is highly likely that the child will go to university, and it will be the taxpayer who pays.
	I have another case, which I will describe to the House because I am so thrilled. It involves Mrs. Y, who took on Mr. Y with great support from the CSA. However, its investigatory powers are poor. This man claimed not to be working, but he works for an American company abroad and moves around a lot. She found out where he was living and checked on him. How she got the information I do not know, but she managed to produce concrete evidence of this person's income. She found that out; the CSA does not have the investigatory powers to do so.
	Mrs. Y discovered where Mr. Y was living, produced a marriage certificate and obtained his mobile phone records. This woman should be employed by the CSA. She is one serious bit of kit.

Frank Field: She should run it.

Dari Taylor: Mrs. Y now has sufficient evidence and the CSA has brought a case against Mr. Y. Enforcement action has been successful. I have a multitude of such cases, and I ask the Minister to consider investigatory powers.
	No wonder CSA officers feel stressed; if they have heard much of what has been said in the debate, they will be feeling even more stressed. I meet them each month at my Stockton office. They have a clear sense of professionalism and they are determined to deliver, wherever and however, for the families, most particularly the children. I say to the House, please remember that CSA officers are handling 1.4 million cases, and that figure is growing. They are supporting more than 600,000 children and have collected 4.5 billion in maintenance.
	I have pleaded for the Minister to consider investigation. I also suggest that he take out of the system the multi-difficulty cases involving those who are deliberately avoiding and evading, and who will continue to do so. Equally, let us put in the system people who want to paythose who have a responsibility and who feel it appropriatebut properly, through the organisation. We must remember that when marriages break down, speaking to each other decently becomes more and more difficult. We should not think that having two families to care for is easy.
	We need a system whereby the decent parent can feel reassured that his payments are appropriate and are going to the children. This is the plea of all pleas: if Mrs. Y is not to be employed by the CSA

Frank Field: As chief executive.

Dari Taylor: As chief executive, as my right hon. Friend says. If Mrs. Y is not to be employed by the CSA, let us hope that we can get the IT system working, because we are putting too many children and vulnerable youngsters in too many unstable families due to a situation that they should never have to face. Frankly, we as a society will rue the day if we are unable to put this right.

Michael Weir: As I said in an intervention, I have dealt with the Child Support Agency for some 13 years, first as a solicitor and then as a Member of Parliament. I remember as a solicitor dealing with many cases relating to child maintenance and divorce. I found them the most emotionally draining to deal with, although I dealt with lots of other things as well. I cannot imagine what it is like to go into a CSA office day after day to deal with nothing but such cases. It must be a terribly stressful job, and I have a great deal of respect for the staff who do that.
	I reiterate what was said by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor): the staff should not be attacked, as it is not their fault that there is a problem with the agency. They are dealing with a very difficult situation. I understand that there is quite a large turnover of staff at the Falkirk office. That is partly because of the stress of the jobit is not surprising. I must also say to the Minister that these are probably not the best paid jobs in the civil service. We all know what is wrong with the agency.
	I also mentioned earlier a report in Scotland's Sunday Mail, which describes the famous report from Stephen Geraghty, which we have not seen, as a
	damning report
	that
	calls for the agency's work to be shared between other Government departments.
	The article is headed, We Don't Deserve Any More Support, Boss Says CSA Must Be Axed. I do not know whether he is saying that and the Minister will not tell us, but it is interesting that the counsel of despair has perhaps gone so far that the CSA's own boss does not see any great future for the agency. Having said that, I   have some sympathy with the Minister's comments because, whatever we do, we have to have the CSA or something like it.
	Every constituency MP will have filing cabinets full of cases involving the agency. Those are certainly the biggest component of my case load, although complaints about tax credits are fast catching up. That is my objection to the Liberal Democrat proposal: to transfer the agency's functions to the Inland Revenue seems to me to be the equivalent of wilfully leaping out of the frying pan directly into the fire.
	The tax credit system is also failing those whom it is supposed to help. Indeed, several constituents have told me that they are so sickened by their treatment that they will no longer claim tax credits. That is a terrible indictment of the system. Adding to that chaos the chaos of the CSA would be insane. It should not be done.
	There is also a practical problem: the CSA works with one computer system while the Inland Revenue works with another. Are those systems at all compatible? Can we transfer, one between the other, or are we to pay the famous EDS another massive sum for a computer system that can run both together?
	As I also said earlier, the agency's problems go back to its very foundation. When the agency was established, there seemed to be no appreciation among those involved in setting it up of the lengths to which some parents will go to avoid taking responsibility for their children. In many cases and in many ways, it seemed that the agency almost tried to disguise that problem by concentrating on those who would pay, or at least pay something. That led to hundreds of cases in which huge arrears grew up, with little or nothing being done, although other parents were harassed by the agency. In my view, the agency has never got over that initial problem. What is in principle a good idea was undermined from the outset by its rushed introduction.
	I asked some parliamentary questions about the number of cases of arrears in my relatively small rural constituency. I was told that 600 cases had been outstanding for more than three months in Angus alone, and 26,000 across Scotland as a whole. That is an appalling situation. One case, in which the problems are compounded by various appeals and reassessments, has been going on for 10 years and continues. The parent with care is at the end of her tether, and who can blame her? Another case, which is far from unique, was sent for enforcement and reached the stage at which the agency threatened the absent parent with imprisonment. He paid a little, and a schedule of payments was agreed. He   paid for a couple of months and then stopped. Nothing was done. When action was eventually taken, the process started from scratch. Why on earth are such cases not rigorously monitored to ensure compliance? The answer in part, of course, is that there are not the staff to do it. Monitoring of compliance, however, is important.
	It is not just the agency that is at fault. One of the problems is that the agency has the ability to take people to court for failing to provide information or providing false information, which is a criminal offence that can go to the sheriff court in Scotland. I understand from those working in the agency, however, that many such cases that are reported to the court are not proceeded with by the fiscals. There is an urgent need for a multi-agency approach to link up the agency with the court and to make sure that the court plays its part.
	The Minister might think that it is my favourite reading, but there was another story in last Sunday's Sunday Mail[Interruption.] I am trying hard. The case that it narrates is of someone who is owed 15,000 for a 14-year-old child. The case was taken to the court, but the sheriff decided that the father was
	a drinker and a gambler and did not have the money to pay her.
	Again, that is a terrible indictment of what happens. If cases go from the CSA to the court, the court must play its part.
	There are numerous cases with large outstanding arrears. When the Scottish Affairs Committee examined the agency a couple of years ago we were assured that the collection of arrears was a priority. It seems that nothing has changed in the interim, however. I still have constituents who are chasing huge arrears, and worse still, in one recent case, a constituent who had been chasing substantial arrears for two years was suddenly told, Sorry, it's a mistake; no arrears are actually due. The information given by the agency to parents is often at fault. As has been pointed out, there is contradictory information in letters, saying that things are being done that are not done. The case might come back a couple of months later, questions are asked about why nothing is being done, and the chase starts again.
	It is not just parents with care who have legitimate cause for complaintthere is the question of absent parents, not all of whom are trying to avoid payment. Indeed, in my experience, an awful lot of them accept that they must pay, but there are now at least two different systems, and in some cases there seem to be up to six operating in different areas. At least two are operating side by side, and people in identical situations can pay hugely different amounts. One constituent who contacted me recently pointed out that he was on the old system and was paying around 500 per month, while a work colleague in an identical situation who was on what I suppose we could still call a new systemalthough it is some three years since it should have been introducedis paying less than 200. Such glaring and obvious inequalities fuel discontent and undermine the agency still further.
	A steady stream of constituents have that complaint, and there is little that MPs can do. If we contact the MinisterI am sure that most of us have done itwe get the formulaic reply that it would be irresponsible to transfer old cases on to the new system until such time as there is certainty that the computer system is robust. That is fair enough, but how long does it take to get a robust computer system? It is now three years since the new system was introduced, and yet few cases have been transferred.
	As I also pointed out earlier, it is worth noting to constituents that even being transferred to the new system might not necessarily help. There is a common misconception that many men, when they are transferred from the old to the new system, will immediately have a large fall in payments. That is not the case. There is a taper, and because of the delay in introducing the system many who have children in their teens will get no benefit from a transfer now. Even under the new system, one fifth of cases contain errors.
	As I said, I have some sympathy with the Minister. I   do not blame the Government for all the problems of the agency. They inherited a mess, but they have now had eight years and the mess does not seem to be getting much better. Urgent action is now needed. A fundamental root-and-branch reform of the agency is required. I do not have all the answersI wish that I did, as perhaps I would be made chief executive, which I am sure is worth a lot more than standing here. When the new system was introduced, there was real hope that the mess would be tackled, but nothing seems to have improved.
	I do not support the abolition of the agency, because, as I said, something would have to be put in its placeif not the agency, then something similar. We cannot go back to the old courts system. I cannot speak for the courts in England, but the courts in Scotland could not cope with a massive influx of child support cases. It would overwhelm the system and lead to utter collapse. The one point that the old system had in its favour, which struck me when the Minister outlined it, was an ability to have a quick interim assessment made on ex   parte statements. If 300,000 cases are awaiting even the initial assessment, it seems to me that one way to get some speed into the system would be to reintroduce the interim assessment, either through the courts or some other agency, that will at least give a quick decision that will allow enforcement while a full investigation is made of the facts.
	In a previous debate in Westminster Hall, the Minister gave an assurance that there would be no job cuts in the CSA until the problems had been sorted out. There have been various comings and goings about the numbers in the CSA, and I do not intend to enter into   that argument. There is, however, a question of resourceswe need people who can do the investigation, the calculation and the enforcement.
	To ensure fairness, all cases need to be treated in the same way, to ensure that the pubic have confidence in the agency's methods. That means that we must go forward and move everybody on to the same system. To cut the Gordian knot, that must be done. We cannot continue with the complexity of different systemsan old computer system, a new computer system, a manual system and a part-manual system. I cannot understand why there are so many systems. The case of one constituent on the new system, for some reason that I   could not understand, would not work on the computer, so it went back to a manual system, but she was told that she had to phone the agency every month to remind it to take the money and pay it into her bank account. That seems a bizarre way to proceed.
	The agency has lost public confidence. Root-and-branch reform is necessary. I do not support a transfer to the Inland Revenue, which would be going from bad to worse. I can happily support the Liberal Democrat motion, because it does not provide a specific solution, and I can also happily support the Government's amendment, which recognises the difficulties with the agency. While it mentions Stephen Geraghty's report, however, it does not tell us what is in it and what the Government will do. Until we get that information, all that we can say[Interruption.] The Minister says that we will get it soon, but how soon is soon? In this place, soon seems to be anything from tomorrow to next year. If there is a date for an announcement, let us hear what the Government have to say. Reform is urgently required, and I think that the Minister accepts that it must be a root-and-branch reform and a real cleaning out of the agency.

Martin Horwood: I join other Members in praising the dedication of the staff of the Child Support Agency. I agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who is no longer present, that it takes some dedication to work day after day for an organisation that faces such problems. A late friend of mine who was a management consultant for the agency said as long ago as the 1990s that it had failed the dinner-party test: its staff were not prepared to admit that they worked for it when they met people for the first time over dinner. The problems seem to have continued and multiplied since then. I shall cite two constituency cases, which demonstrate that the scale of evasion is not the only cause of those problems. Systematic inefficiencies, poor systems and the poor quality of decision making in the agency cannot be overlooked.
	A constituent of mine first made a claim on 15 October 2004. Rather unusuallybecause, as she rather charmingly said, she had heard that the CSA was not a very efficient organisationshe kept a log of what followed. After 11 months, 22 telephone calls and two faxes, her log contained a litany of computer problems, calls, complaints and information that had not been acted on, promised updates that had not been given, and failure to act on payment defaults on which she had been told that action had been taken. No effective work was done on her case for month after month and, inexplicably, the whole case was transferred from Dudley to Plymouth halfway through. It all culminated on 6 September 2005 with a call from a CSA caseworker, who offered to help her with her new claim11 months after the original claim had been submitted. As any manager knows, such inefficiency increases not just the queue but the burden. It complicates the position and makes it worse.
	In the second case, a couple separated and the child stayed with the woman. She made a claim through the CSA and a payment assessment was made. The amount was not paid by her ex-partner, who was self-employed. The extent of the arrears is a matter of dispute between her and the agency, but there certainly were arrears. At that stage, the child moved house from one parent to the other. The woman's self-employed ex-partner then made a claim against her for payment. Because she was a salaried public employee, she automatically had to pay. She was therefore paying twiceshe was paying for the period during which the child had stayed with her and also for the period during which the child was staying with her ex-partner. When we asked whether the arrears could be offset against the payments, we were inexplicably told that they could not. Apparently, it was beyond the competence of the agency even to entertain the idea.
	I feel that that case constitutes an argument for some separation, or a degree of escape, from absolute dependence on the receipt of payments from one partner before payments are made to the other. Surely the reputation, at least, of the Inland Revenue might give people pause before they evaded payments in such a systematic way. While certain schemes may have caused problems, that reputation, and the Revenue's general efficiency, suggest that it should be given responsibility.
	Would tagging have helped in either case? Of course not. The CSA is an organisation that has been in crisis for many years. The platform on which the Minister wanted to build is broken. The agency is not fit for its purpose and it is time to return to the drawing board, preferably with cross-party support if it can be mustered. I see no ideological divide; I simply see a very serious problem, the victims of which are children and families in my constituency and across the country. That problem has been allowed to drag on for far too long.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) for initiating the debate, and to the many Members who have made such thoughtful contributions to it. I think that the welfare of the child is at the heart of all our concerns. Notwithstanding what was said by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), many thousands of young people are still not receiving the support that they so richly deserve. Like many other Members, I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government propose to restore confidence in a process thatas the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) rightly saidis half broken.
	The fundamental issue, as was eloquently pointed out by the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), is the lack of public confidence in the CSA. That was brought home to me forcefully during the summer recess when a friend told me about his two daughters, both divorced and both with children, neither of whom was bothering to chase up support from the children's fathers through the CSA. They had been so put off by the experiences of friends that they decided to go on bringing up their children on their own.
	The Minister made much of the need for more enforcement. How does he propose to make that work? I am currently dealing with the case of a grandfather who is bringing up three children on his old age pension because their mother has died. A court order was issued last March, and in November the police were still refusing to enforce it and take the father to court. Last week, I received a letter from the police saying that as the father had had an accident and been taken to hospital, they would not pursue the case further. That is unacceptable. If we are to have enforcement, we must have enforcement all along the line. All the agencies involved must ensure that those who refuse to pay are brought to book.
	In his answer to the question that he was asked in November, the Prime Minister said that he felt that the CSA was trying to do too muchthat it was taking on too much. What is it being asked to do? It must carry out assessments; then there must be the collection; then there must be enforcement in the cases of the all too many fathers who will not pay up readily.
	Mine is the only party that has today suggested ways in which the system could be reformed. If the Minister will not consider wholesale transfer of responsibility to the Inland Revenue, will he accept the view of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that the Revenue could be used effectively to enforce collection? Nothing focuses the mind more strongly than an effect on the pay packet. The root of the problem is the lack of clear enforcement procedures, which enables so many people not to own up to what they earn and not to make regular payments. Whatever may be said about tax credits, the Inland Revenue is an excellent collection agency. A system to enforce some form of collectionalbeit rather crudewould bring people to book.

Anne Begg: Much has been made of enforcement, but it has all been about enforcement by the CSA to ensure that the non-resident parent pays. There is a different enforcement issue for, in particular, fathers' groups who have been paying child maintenance. They are concerned about enforcement of the court order that allows them access. That is why we often see very angry fathers who feel that one side of the systemironically, the CSAis being enforced sufficiently, but the court orders are not. What is the Liberal Democrat solution to that?

Paul Rowen: In an intervention earlier, I pointed out that there was a role for the courts as well as for the Revenue. Many cases are ongoing, whether they involve access or other matters. I would not advocate returning to the old system, but why cannot the courts play a greater role in ensuring that issues concerning the child are dealt with concurrently, rather than separately and through various agencies?
	This has been an excellent debate and I hope that, in her concluding remarks, the Minister will agree to release the chief executive's report before the Government's proposals are published, so that Members can read the report and then perhaps respond more positively to the Government's proposals. I look forward to their finally restoring public confidence in a failing organisation.

Mark Hunter: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute briefly to this debate. I speak in support of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), and of the motion before the House.   I know that I am not the only Member whose   constituency mailbag amply demonstrates the somewhat chaotic nature of the Child Support Agency in its current form. Fathers and mothers approach me   daily in large numbers with talesthe vast majority   of which are subsequently proved to be correctof incompetence, misunderstanding, contempt and despair.
	I do not suggest for one minute that CSA staff are not dealing with sensitive and difficult issues as best they can, or that the organisation does not have a tough job on its hands. However, far from achieving positive outcomes in difficult circumstances, the CSA has in my view all too often contributed to a further breakdown in relationships that were already broken. The end result is that children are missing out on the financial support that they deserve, and their chances of enjoying a positive relationship with both parents are being jeopardised. In my experience, it is not just a question of the wastefulness of the system, which was highlighted in   recent months, and the incompetence that led to thousands of fathers being wrongly named as absent parents; the CSA also has a seriously bad image problem. It is structurally unsound, and the tragedy is that it has lost the confidence of so many of those whom it is designed to help.
	Every week, I am presented with correspondence from the CSA, written in language that is highly unlikely to elicit co-operation from parents. Many parents face a CSA that acts as judge, jury and executioner in its dealings with them. In many cases, such correspondence is directed to parents who are more than willing to co-operate. Is it any wonder that so many children are not getting their fair share of maintenance, when the system treats parents in this way?
	It is clear that the structural complexities of the CSA in its current form have led to administrative difficulties. We are all familiar with the backlog in processing claims, and with the headline figure on how much it costs to collect maintenance, compared with the amount that children actually get. Those complexities have filtered through in the CSA's dealings with families. This unholy alliance of complexity and hostility is costing thousands, if not millions, of children every day. Without a modicum of confidence in the system, the CSA simply cannot operate.
	The strategic review of the CSA has to be one of the most overdue reviews in any part of government. I urge Ministers to take into consideration the reasoned and reasonable proposals that my colleagues have outlined this afternoon. Nobody wants a return to the old system, but we do need to move forward with a new one.

Danny Alexander: This has been an excellent debate with   well-informed contributions from all parts of the House, including from my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) and for Cheadle (Mark Hunter). I am grateful to all those who made very useful points during the debate. Of course, I   should not forget to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), who opened the debate.
	In opening for the Conservatives, the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) referred to their four-point plan. I do not intend to comment on that todayperhaps the Minister will not be so carefulexcept to note her reference to the potential privatising of parts of the Child Support Agency. I am not convinced that that is a particularly useful contribution to this debate. Overall, the Conservative approach is one of tinkeringperhaps understandably, given that it was a Conservative Government who set up the CSArather than the fundamental reform that we Liberal Democrats want to see. It is perhaps indicative of the challenge facing the supposedly new, modern, compassionate Conservative party that none of its Back Benchers chose to make a speech today on an issue of overwhelming social importance.
	I was particularly gratified to hear the comments of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who shares our desire to see radical solutions to the CSA's problems. He also rightly shares our view that full and active consideration should be given to handing over the CSA's functions to the Inland Revenue.

Mark Pritchard: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify the Liberal Democrats' position on this issue? We have heard today about the idea of transferring the CSA's functions to the Revenue, but have there not been rumblings in the hon. Gentleman's party about privatising the CSA? Which is it to be?

Danny Alexander: My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil spelt out in some detail our policyindeed, so far, ours is the only party to do soof transferring functions to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. That is a clear, sensible and forward-looking policy, and I   hope that it will commend itself to the House when we come to vote.
	I hope that the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) is successful in his bid to get into the Sunday Mail. Having pointed that out, I shall press on, as we are short of time and the Minister has a number of points that she wishes to make.
	For reasons that have been outlined, the CSA has been in a state of almost perpetual crisis since it was established by the Conservatives in 1993, and it is still in crisis today. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions report of January last year described it as
	a failing organisation which is currently in crisis,
	and suggested that
	consideration be given to the option of winding it up.
	In November 2005, during Prime Minister's questions, the Prime Minister said:
	I make no defence of the current situation . . . The truth is that the agency is not properly suited to carry out that task.[Official Report, 16 November 2005; Vol. 439, c. 964.]
	He may have decided that it was appropriate to make no defence of the current situation, but the Minister who opened for the Government was not entirely sure whether to bury the agency or to praise it. On the one hand, he called for a fundamental review; on the other, he described the Government's policy as one of trying to get the agency on to a stable footing, with no quick fixes. Given that it is 13 years since the CSA's establishment, quick fixes are hardly what we are contemplating.
	The Minister referred to the CSA chief executive's report, and I echo the call of several Members for that report to be published. The Government asked for a copy of our proposals earlier today, and I furnished them with one within minutes. I hope that they will show similar alacrity in publishing the chief executive's report. As was pointed out, that would be a fair exchange. It has to be said that the Minister's approach sounds like tinkering, rather than the fundamental reform that we Liberal Democrats hope will form the substance of the Government's policy, when it is finally published. The central question of this debate is, should we have fundamental reform, or will there be yet more tinkering? In that context, it is worth noting one of the   substantive differences between our motion and the Government's amendment to it. Our motion refers to the loss of public confidence in the CSAa point that was neither echoed in the Government's amendment nor tackled by the Minister. After 13 wasted years, the time has come for fundamental reform of the CSA.
	Reference has been made to the various problems associated with the CSA. It collects just 1.85 in maintenance for every 1 it spends on administration, and the amount of uncollected maintenance has tripled since 1997from 1.1 billion to 3.3 billion in 200405. I should be grateful if the Minister would address in her winding-up speech the issue of the number of staff. We were told today that there are 10,027 members of staff, and that that figure should rise to 11,000 by the end of March. But in a written answer of 9 Januaryonly a week agothe Minister herself said that the target figure for the number of staff by the end of March 2006 was 9,400. I should be grateful if she would explain why there has been such a rapid transformation in the objectives. It may be because of this debate being called, but perhaps the written answer was referring to full-time equivalents while the Minister was referring to a head-count. Will she clarify that and, if necessary, correct the record?
	Reference has been made to the CSA's high staff turnover rate of 17 per cent. Increasing the number of members of staff may be part of the answer, but ensuring that they stay in their jobs and can build up the experience needed, which has been rightly urged by hon. Members, is important.
	Hon. Members have said that, in many cases, the CSA is there to serve the poorest in society and is fundamental to the tackling of child poverty, which I   know is of concern to hon. Members on both sides. Maintenance is received in only 25 per cent. of cases where a lone parent is on benefit; that is down from 28 per cent. when Labour came to power and no better than in 1989 when the agency was set up, despite a public service agreement target to raise the level by March 2006. Underlying those statistics are thousands upon thousands of individuals with experience of repeated failure, and many hon. Members have mentioned such cases.
	We need a fundamental reform based on clear principles. The first is that parents have a moral responsibility to maintain their children whenever they can afford to do so. The child's well-being must be paramount in everything that we do. The fact that, earlier this year, only one in five cases was having maintenance collected shows that whatever the successes in some caseshon. Members have mentioned some successesin the vast majority of cases maintenance is not collected and the agency is failing.
	Families should have the right to determine their own level of support where they are fully informed about all aspects of the matter and where the interests of the taxpayer are not affected. The organisation responsible for arranging and enforcing child support must command the respect of the public, and it is fair to say that the CSA does not. The assessment of maintenance liabilities must be administratively straightforward, efficient, transparent and relatively predictable, which is one of the advantages of transferring the CSA's functions to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, an organisation with a good reputation in dealing efficiently with its business.

Anne Begg: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Danny Alexander: No, I will press on.
	I have been highly critical of the operation of the tax credits policy, but that is the fault of the policy as much as anything else. One of the major problems with tax credits is that the computer system has been far too effective in taking money out of bank accounts before appropriate appeals and assessments have been carried out. That efficiency, while inappropriate in the case of tax credits, would be an asset in dealing with the collection of money from absent or feckless parents and the passing on of that money to the children who, after all, should be the main beneficiaries of the policy.
	Where individuals believe that justice has not been done because of exceptional individual circumstances, a process of arbitration must be available to look at the case and come to a judgment that is swift, fair and final. We propose that a new child support arbiter be set up. Once the functions were transferred to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the arbiter would be there to deal with those difficult cases in a way that is fair, swift and final.
	A truly child-centred policy must look beyond merely enforcing the financial obligations of non-resident parents and do more to encourage the involvement of both parents in their children's upbringing. The CSA was set up under a Conservative Government and the failings began then; it has not been improved under Labourindeed, the problems of the new system highlight that. As we know from our constituents, parents have no confidence in the CSA; the Select Committee has no confidence in the agency; and it is clear from answers in this House last year that the Prime Minister has no confidence in the agency, either.
	An alternative proposal that is simpler, fairer and effective does exist. It is to transfer the functions of the CSA to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. I have heard no other proposals. I know the Government are holding their breath, as we all are, for their own proposals to be published in due course. It would be helpful if the Minister gave the House some idea of when the Government's proposals will be published. Will it be a few days, weeks or months? The Government have had eight years to look at this and I   hope they will give us some idea of when they will make their proposals for reform.
	Parliament today should give hope to the hundreds of thousands of parents whose lives have been made a misery and in some cases wrecked by the CSA and to the   children it is failing to help by recognising that the agency has utterly failed beyond any possibility of reform. Lack of confidence and respect for the CSA will translate into a lack of respect for Parliament, and rightly so, if we do not finally act to deal with the problem as we have proposed.
	I conclude by commending the motion to the House and urging the Government to embrace a policy of fundamental reform of the CSA, rather than tinkering at the edges.

Anne McGuire: I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for what has been a mature and deliberative debate on a difficult issue. It is important to recognise the areas where there is agreement, regardless of which political perspective we come from. We all agree that it is right that parents, whether or not they have care of the child, should take financial responsibility for the child; that financial support should be reasonable and accurately reflect the true cost of bringing up a child; that, for the most part, support responsibilities work best when they are undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two adult parents, even if the administration has to be carried out by a third party such as the CSA through maintenance direct; and that where that cannot or does not happen, there should be the involvement of a statutory intermediary, previously mainly the courts and now the CSA.
	There is agreement on both sides that for a variety of   reasons, many of which we have heard explained todaysome of which I hope to cover in the next few   minutescollectively as parliamentarians and legislators, we have not yet cracked how best to provide that intermediary support so that it can carry out its functions in the best interests primarily of the children, while recognising that it is a parent's primary responsibility to provide for their child and not that of taxpayers.
	I want to thank the Liberal Democrats who have now published their weighty tome on their website. I was lucky enough to get a copy; Liberal Members had a wee conflab and decided that it was safe to give it to me. I   must say that I would not miss The Bill tonight reading it. Most of the information it contains is already in the public domain, provided by the 158 parliamentary questions asked by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr.   Laws). It is extremely light on analysis.

David Heath: Will the Minister give way?

Anne McGuire: Not at the moment: I do not want to interrupt my train of thought as I deal with the one thought in the Liberal Democrats' 10-point plan. They want to scrap the CSA, but they do not seem to have considered what that would mean in terms of legislation or implementation.
	There is no quick fix to this issue, as the complexity of the problems highlighted in the debate shows. We cannot let children down, or allow my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) to continue to feel the shame that he said was part of his daily life. We must accept some collective responsibility for what has gone wrong with the CSA.
	Normally, I do not give adverts for the Liberal Democrats, but their new document has been passed on to me. In my forthright, Scottish way I must tell the House that it contains just one, lonely, idea.

David Heath: Clearly, the Minister has come to the end of her thought processes. She mentioned that the evidence supporting our contentions about the CSA were in the public domain, but the one piece of evidence not in the public domain is the report by the CSA's chief executive, Mr. Geraghty. That report will colour all our thoughts about the agency's future. Will the Minister say when she intends to publish it, and does she intend to place it in the Library?

Anne McGuire: I love the depth of the questions that are sometimes put to Ministers. I shall deal with the report in a few seconds.
	Today's debate has highlighted yet again the breadth and complexity of the problems facing the CSA. Many of those problems stem from the way in which the agency was set up originally, as even some Conservative Members agree. The CSA was established with strong cross-party support, and it is fair to say that the complexity of the issues that it had to deal with was recognised only slowly by the Government of the day.
	The principles underlying the CSA were correct, although some people suspected that the priority might have been saving benefits rather than helping children. However, a process in which up to 100 separate pieces of information could be demanded from parents was almost impossible to implement efficiently. Often, those parents no longer communicated with each other and were reluctant to deal with a third party. A forest must have been sacrificed to provide the paper for the continual stream of assessments that were sent out.
	I was elected in 1997, and I remember dealing with my first CSA complaint. It was a bit like going on my first date. [Interruption.] The emotions and issues were complex

Rob Marris: Tell us more about the date.

Anne McGuire: I led a very boring life, but I remember the amount and complexity of the paperwork involved, and the number of calculations that had to be made.

David Heath: I want to hear about the CSA.

Anne McGuire: I think that we should just let my date remark lie. Scottish solicitors are good, but it really needed a Philadelphia lawyer to understand the complexity of that first case, which involved a young man who earned 175 a week but whose accumulated debt amounted to 11,500. He would never have paid it off in a month of Sundays.
	Many of the problems highlighted in the debate do not concern errors made in the past few months, or even the past couple of years. They have their roots in things that have gone wrong over the entire period of the CSA's existence.
	In 2003, a recognition of those problems compelled the Government, with the support of all parties in the House, to move to a better system. However, it is fair to say that we did not fully appreciate the major difficulties involved in simplifying matters and in trying to superimpose new procedures on such a deeply flawed system.

David Laws: May we move away from the Minister's previous experiences, and focus on the reduction in the number of CSA staff? Last week, she signed off an answer to a parliamentary question that included information about staff reductions, but her colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr.   Plaskitt), said earlier that staff numbers were rising. Which is it?

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman anticipated my next sentence, as I want to echo the comments made by many hon. Members to the effect that CSA staff are dedicated but working under extreme pressure. To clarify the question about staff numbers: the hon. Gentleman asked a parliamentary question a month ago

David Laws: It has been answered.

Anne McGuire: That question has been answered, but he should by now have received from the CSA chief executive the actual figures, rather than the planned ones. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary was right to say that by September 2005 there had been an increase in full-time equivalent staff in the CSA

David Laws: indicated dissent.

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman may huff and puff, but the chief executive's letter should have reached his tray either yesterday or today. If it has not done so, it should arrive tomorrow, but I have a copy.

David Laws: My information is that the CSA employed 10,779 staff on 31 March 2004 and that, by last March, that figure had fallen by 1,000. Those figures cannot have changed, as the dates to which they apply have passed.

Anne McGuire: I am dealing with the most recent figures, which are for 30 September 2005. As part of the recovery plan, we increased the number of full-time equivalent staff in the CSA. That is my clarification of the matter, and if the hon. Gentleman still has a major difficulty, we can come back to it at another time.
	In the debate, we heard about the experiences of many hon. Members, including Ministers. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said in his opening remarks, extraordinary measures have been taken by peoplemainly by men, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) saidto avoid paying child maintenance. Every trick in the book has been used. Constituents of mine tell meeven the ones who earn reasonable salaries and admit that they have a financial responsibility for their childrenthat their payment assessment is too high because they have a car to pay for, a holiday to go on, or a social life to lead. That is what we are dealing withpeople who do not want to accept their personal responsibilities.
	I could have come to the House and highlighted some of the areas where there has been improvement. Enforcement is one them, and I hope that that reassures those hon. Members who asked about that in the debate. In 200203, 2,383 enforcement orders were issued, but more than 6,300 were issued between April and November last year.
	As for compliance, I could have told the House that the CSA collects 600 million from absent parents every year. I could have asked the House to accept that our contact with parents means that more than 400,000 now receive maintenance, either arranged through the agency or paid to them directly or indirectly. I could have asked the House to accept that, when it comes to   supporting children, we are doing much better than   anyone could have anticipated, with more than 529,000 children now receiving money because of the CSA's intervention. I could have said to the House that these are the improvements we have made and asked it to agree that we are moving forward. However, we are not asking the House to do that. We asked the new chief executive to commission a root and branch review of the agency when he took up his post. We have asked him to look at the agency's operations in the round to ensure that his findings, when they are eventually put before the House, give a strategic view of the situation.

David Laws: When?

Anne McGuire: Well, the hon. Gentleman knows that I will not give him a specific date, but I will give him an assurance that when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State makes a statement to the House, he will also indicate what documents will be put in the public domain and what information will be seen by the House.
	The amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister does not ask the House to ignore the   difficulties that the agency faces in carrying out the duties set for it by Parliament. It recognises that the   agency is not properly suited to carrying out its current task. Our amendment also makes it clear that once we have considered our conclusions, we will present them to the House. Given that the Liberal Democrat motion asks us only to note the obvious, like some school debating motion, I ask them to withdraw it.
	The House has been patient on this matter, and I also thank those parents caring for children for whom the system has not delivered for their patience. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will ensure in due course that the House is fully informed of the solutions that we think we can put in place for the reform of the agency.
	Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House proceeded to a Division.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 69, Noes 306.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Madam Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House agrees with the Prime Minister that the Child Support Agency suffers from basic structural problems and is not properly suited to carrying out its current tasks; accepts the importance of ensuring that more families with children receive the maintenance payments to which they are entitled; and notes that the Government will shortly set out its conclusions on the right way forward following the Chief Executive's review of the operation of the Child Support Agency.

Civil Nuclear Power

Madam Deputy Speaker: We now come to the second debate. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I advise all Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a time limit of eight minutes on Back-Bench speeches.

Norman Baker: I beg to move,
	That this House opposes the construction of a new generation of civil nuclear power plants.
	The idea that we might build a new generation of such plants is on the agenda for the first time in about 15 years. We have been told by the Prime Minister and others that the process will require no primary legislation, perhaps not even a vote in the House. The Liberal Democrats are thus happy to provide an opportunity for the House to discuss this important issueas we did with climate change throughout the last Parliament, when the Government failed to provide opportunities to discuss that important issue, too.
	Hon. Members may ask why nuclear power is back on the agenda. The first reason is clearly the concern about climate change and the belieferroneous, as I hope to demonstratethat nuclear power is an answer to that problem. The second reason is security of supply. I will deal with those points later.
	Let me refer to the poll on nuclear power that was published today and reported by the media. Those who have been desperate for some good news have been keen to point out that a narrow, wafer-thin majority of people have said that, under certain circumstances and if it dealt with climate change, they would reluctantly embrace nuclear power. It is also worth pointing out that, notwithstanding the fact that nuclear power does not deal with climate change, 80 per cent. of those polled thought that renewable technologies and energy efficiency were better ways of tackling global warming. So that poll and the one from the BBC last year, which showed overwhelming opposition to nuclear power, show that the country understands these issues very well indeed.

Michael Weir: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early. As he is talking about polls, is he aware of the online poll on the Sunday Herald website, which shows that 65 per cent. of Scots oppose nuclear power and that only 35 per cent. are in favour?

Norman Baker: That does not surprise me, and the Scottish Executive are taking a rather different position, of course, from the Government in London.
	Before I come to the case for new build, such as it is, let me deal with the nuclear legacy and explain why many hon. Members are sceptical about the merits of nuclear power. Let us remember that we have just passed the Energy Act 2004, which has written off a bill of 48 billionsubsequently revised upwards, of course, as they always are, to 56 billionto clear up the mess that we already have. About 933 for every man, woman and child in the country is needed to deal with the existing mess. The nuclear industry is effectively bankrupt, or it would be if it were not for state subsidy. Of course, British Energy had to be bailed out to the tune of 6 billion by the Government to stop it going bankrupt, with all the European Union involvement in that. The nuclear industry presents massive security hazardsnot least with the legacy at Sellafield, which is very serious indeed, as the Minister for Energy recognises.

Kevan Jones: I note that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) is not in the Chamber, but what would the hon. Gentleman say in response to the point that his hon. Friend made in the Sunday Herald on 11 December, when the party spokesman on Scotland said:
	New reactors could be the least worst option for maintaining security of supply?
	He dismissed as emotional arguments about the controversial policy of building new nuclear power stations and commented that the waste issue would be solved. Does the hon. Gentleman fundamentally disagree with his hon. Friend?

Norman Baker: My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) said before he left the Chamber that Labour Members would raise that issue, because they are desperate to find   anything to divide the Liberal Democrats[Interruption]and he asked me to make it clear that he is no advocate of nuclear power. Those are the words that he asked me to pass on to the House, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to do so. I wait to hear whether there is unanimity among Labour Members or, indeed, Conservative Members.

John Spellar: It is a question of unity not among Members, but among Front Benchers. As far as I am aware, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) is the Scottish spokesman on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party. Will he stay as part of the Front-Bench team if he does not agree with the policy of his own party? Who speaks on behalf of the Liberal Democratsor, as usual, are they saying one thing in one area and another thing in another?

Norman Baker: I have already answered that question, but it will be interesting to find out, as the matter unfolds and as we debate it today and later on, whether the Minister for Energy and the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, who are sitting very close to each other on the Front Bench, share the same view or, indeed, whether the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) shares the same view as the Conservative trade and industry spokesman. So we will have a fascinating three hours and more, as the debate unfolds.
	I want to deal with the waste issue, as part of the nuclear legacy. In fact, 18 million cu m of contaminated soil and rubble have been produced from 30 sites over a period of 60 years. The nuclear industry has been incapable of clearing up after itself; it has simply accumulated waste and hoped that a solution will arrive. We now have the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which I support, but it has taken a long time to get there. The fact of the matter is that the nuclear industry cannot be trusted to deal with its own waste.

Tobias Ellwood: May   we please have some clarity? I hope that the hon.   Gentleman will agree that, when he talks about nuclear waste, he must clarify whether he means high-level, medium or low-level waste. The amount of   high-level waste in the United Kingdom would barely fill a large football pitch. [Interruption.] If he is talking about all the waste, yes, the amount is much bigger, but 90 per cent. of that waste comes from hospitals. Is he saying that we should stop allowing that waste to come from hospitals?

Norman Baker: It is perfectly true that, by volume, the majority of waste is low level. Much of it is kept at Drigg, which, by the way, is about to fall into the seain about 50 to 60 years, according to the Environment Agencyso whether the existing sites are safe for the storage of waste is an issue, too. On high-level and intermediate waste, I would not want a teaspoon of plutonium in my constituency, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman does.

David Heath: My hon. Friend may recall that I was leader of Somerset county council when we opposed Hinkley C, as a result of which we have had a moratorium on nuclear power ever since. May I put it to him that the arguments that we deployed then were not emotional, as was suggested by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), but hard-headed economic assessments of the value of nuclear power? Does my hon. Friend agree that that hard-headed economic assessment is as true today as it was then?

Norman Baker: It certainly is, and I shall come to the costs of nuclear power, the implications of which are frightening.
	The last legacy issue that I want to raise is, of course, the contamination that has been emitted from Sellafield and other nuclear sites. The Irish sea is the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world, as the Irish Government regularly tell Environment Ministers at their meetings, and I am grateful to the Minister for Climate Change and the Environment for acknowledging that fact.

David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is talking about spent fuel. Does he agree that a reasonable estimate of its half-life may be about 50,000 yearsabout 1,500 generations perhapsfor a new generation of nuclear power stations that would give perhaps 60 years' power, two generations perhaps? So for two generations of power, we are willing to let 1,500 generations of our descendents pick up the tab. That is like us going back to the ice age in reverse. Is it not correct that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) is guilty of peddling a red herring, promoting white elephants and all the other such things that he has been accused of?

Norman Baker: The hon. Gentleman's point about waste is absolutely right. The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,000 years. The half-life of uranium-238 is 4,470 million years. In anyone's judgment of intergenerational confidence, that leaves something to be desired.

David Chaytor: The hon. Gentleman said that the current figure for the cost of the   waste legacy is 56 billion, but the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority must shortly produce its revised figureit must do so every yearand does he think that, given previous experience, that figure is likely to increase or decrease? For those hon. Members who are relaxed about football-field sizes of high-level waste, is not the logical consequence of their viewpoint that they should volunteer to have the nuclear waste depository in their constituency?

Norman Baker: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course the estimate will go upnuclear financial estimates always go up. There is a taxi meter on overdrive showing the costs that we will face as a country.
	We have the energy review, although we might ask ourselves why we have it because we had one a couple of years ago. We had quite a reasonable White Paper, which, by the way, said that nuclear power was unattractive and that energy efficiency and renewables were far more attractive options. I thought that the White Paper was sensible, so I am not quite sure what has changed since it was published, other than the fact that the Prime Minister has changed his mind and wants a mechanism to change Government policy as a consequence. We do not want a dodgy dossier on the energy review like we had on Iraq.

Lembit �pik: Does my hon. Friend agree that some of us are at a loss to understand where the Government's creative solutions are coming from? He will know that the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid-Wales, which is based in my constituency, has proved that there are many creative, inexpensive and environmentally friendly ways in which energy consumption can be reduced and in which energy can be produced in a totally clean fashion. Why does he think that the Government take an entirely uncreative approach to such renewable methods and instead insist on plumping for something that obviously has considerable and long-term negative environmental effects?

Norman Baker: To be fair, some members of the Government take a sensible view and others do not. For example, Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are sensible about these matters. We are not sure about Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry, and Ministers in No. 10 and the Cabinet Office are less helpful. It will be interesting to find out who wins the battle on the energy review.
	How will this pan out and what is the case for nuclear power? Hon. Members might be astonished to find that when I asked the Minister for Energy what steps his Department was taking to establish the full economic life cycle costs of nuclear fission, he replied:
	The Department has undertaken no research to establish the full economic life cycle costs of nuclear fission.[Official Report, 14 October 2005; Vol. 437, c. 637W.]
	When I asked for an estimate of the total cost of constructing a new nuclear facility at 2005 prices, I was told:
	The Government have not made their own estimates for the construction of nuclear power facilities.[Official Report, 12 October 2005; Vol. 437, c. 510W.]
	There is nothing to back up the case for nuclear power that has suddenly arisen. There is no basis for getting the matter into an energy review, apart from the Prime Minister's prejudices.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman talks about the Government's inability to provide a price for a new nuclear power station. The World Nuclear Association estimates that the cost of building a new nuclear power station in Scotland would be 2.45 billion over its lifetime. Does he agree that investing in renewables the money that would be spent over the 15 years that it would take to build a nuclear power station would represent a far more sensible approach?

Norman Baker: I would indeed. I will now try to make some progress because I will otherwise run over my time, and I know that other hon. Members wish to speak. I have seen an estimate of 17 billion for the construction of 10 new AP1000 reactors. Incidentally, those proposed reactors have not been built anywhere else in the world, so we do not know whether they will work or come in on budget. However, as nothing else has come in on budget, I do not see why they should.
	As the Chancellor is not going to pay and private industry clearly will not pay, the householder will have to pay. The only way in which we shall end up with a new generation of nuclear power stations will be if the taxpayer or the householder foots the bill. Indeed, an article in The Timesa newspaper that I always believe, of courseon 27 November had the headline, New tax may fund nuclear stations. It went on to say:
	Leaked documents reveal proposals by Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser to put a levy on consumers' power bills to pay for up to 20 new nuclear power plants.
	The only way in which this dodo will fly will be if it is supported by a nuclear tax on householders and a big increase in electricity bills. I do not think that the public at large will support that when it is explained to them in some detail.

Jo Swinson: Is my hon. Friend aware of a report in The Herald that said that the bill for cleaning up the sea bed at Dounreay by removing radioactive particles could be as much as 70 billion? Environmental issues aside, nuclear power is simply uneconomic.

Norman Baker: There is a huge legacy problem at Dounreay, as there is at Sellafield and many nuclear sites throughout the country. There is not yet any solution to the nuclear waste problem. We have had eight and a half years of dithering by the Government. The last act of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) before Prorogation in 1997 was to cancel any plans to have a permanent site at Sellafield. No action has been taken since then to provide a solution to the problem of nuclear waste. It is irresponsible in the extreme to suggest building a new generation of nuclear power stations, which would produce a huge amount of waste, when no solution has been identified to deal with the waste that we already have.

Mark Hendrick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Norman Baker: I must make some progress.
	The industry says that the waste created by nuclear stations will be 10 per cent. of what exists at present. The Government seem to take that on trust, but they take too much on trust from the nuclear industry without carefully investigating the situation. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management suggests that that is an underestimate by some distance and Nirex says the same. The waste caused by a new generation of nuclear power stations will increase the footprint of waste by 50 per cent., although there is no solution to deal with the waste that we already have. That cannot be condoned under any circumstances.
	There are questions about security. Why on earth the Government still seem to be keen to go down the road of reprocessing I do not know because it makes no environmental or economic sense whatsoever, and even many people in the nuclear industry say that. The Minister will know that the thermal oxide reprocessing plantTHORPhas closed. He told me in a written answer on 12 October 2005 that it would not reopen until the Government had taken a view in light of   recommendations in the nuclear installations inspectorate report. It is perfectly proper that the Government should take a view on the basis of the   report, but we have found out that when the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority was asked whether there would be Government involvement, it   said that it thought that it would be possible to start up THORP again without additional ministerial intervention. There is conflict between what the NDA and the Minister are saying. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that THORP will reopen only with Government support and approval. I do not want THORP to reopen, but if that is to happen, it should be approved by a Minister, not the NDA.

Simon Hughes: Does my hon. Friend accept that we have argued for 20 years on these Benches against reprocessing at Sellafield? For 20 years we have made the case that going down that road has a huge budgetary implication for Britain, and for 20 years we have been consistently proved right when Governments have refused to accept the financial facts that result from their commitment to the nuclear industry.

Norman Baker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is the historical record. He argued the case consistently when he performed my role. It is a pity that successive Governments have not listened to sane voices on these Benches and elsewhere that have opposed reprocessing.

Matthew Taylor: We have successfully made a case on a financial basis for many years because the evidence has proved us right on every occasion. Does my hon. Friend accept that there is now an equally fundamental argument? Government Members try to make the case for nuclear power by saying that it is a way of tackling the energy and climate change problems that we face. What message is being sent to developing countries, some of which are unstableincluding Iranwhen we argue against them developing nuclear power because of the risk of proliferation, while developed countries such as ours say that that is the only solution?

Norman Baker: I think that the Government and the Minister for Energy took steps in December to try to help Russia and Kazakhstan to move away from nuclear power and to encourage decommissioning. They have made the point in international forums that reprocessing can produce plutonium, which, of course, can be used in nuclear weapons. It is odd that we encourage countries to go down one road, but perhaps go down a different road ourselves.

Bob Spink: The Liberal Democrats are a Francophile party. What lessons do they take from the fact that France generates 75 per cent. of its electricity using nuclear power? We need a balanced debate, so does the hon. Gentleman accept that nuclear, renewables and energy saving are not mutually exclusive?

Norman Baker: No, I do not accept that, and I shall explain why nuclear power would not address climate change. Nuclear has been described as a carbon-free technology, but it is nothing of the sort. Nuclear power generation and the construction of nuclear power facilities create a considerable carbon footprint. Work done by a university in the Netherlands has suggested that the carbon footprint of a nuclear facility is equivalent to between 20 and 40 per cent. of that of a gas-fired power station over the lifetime of its existence, when one takes account of the mining of uranium, transport and decommissioning.

Brian Iddon: I have some figures that refer to the entire life cycle of Torness nuclear power station that take account of the extraction of ore and decommissioning at the end of the station's life. Some 950 g of carbon dioxide is produced for every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by coal. The figure for gas is 400 g, but it is only 5.05 g for nuclear.

Norman Baker: That is a different figure from the one that I have, but I accept that it is difficult to pin down precisely. However, the fact is that it is becoming more difficult to mine uranium, which results in a higher carbon impact. The figures that I gave are the latest ones from a university in the Netherlands. Even if we split the difference, we are still talking about a significant carbon footprint.
	I was asked by the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob   Spink) why it was not possible to have nuclear and renewables and energy efficiency. There are several reasons for that.

David Chaytor: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that the life cycle emissions of nuclear are an important matter. Is not the discrepancy between the two figures that we have heard quoted likely to be the   result of the lower figure not taking account of the full nuclear life cycle? It does not take account of the full impact of CO 2 emissions from uranium mining, and it certainly does not take account of emissions from waste management, because we do not yet know how to manage nuclear waste.

Norman Baker: I suspect that that explains the difference, but it is not possible to prove that without examining the matter further.
	The reason we cannot have the mix referred to is simple: there is only so much money. A new generation of nuclear power stations would be hugely expensive to build and would draw heavily on the public purse. We have seen over the past 20 years that when money is put into nuclear, there is none left for renewables and energy efficiency. They will wither on the vine and the message that will go out to the renewables industry is, Nuclear is back big timeyou can forget about your wind farms, your tidal power and your solar power. We cannot have them all together.

Susan Kramer: Is my hon. Friend aware that according to Friends of the Earth the amount of electricity used annually in the G8 countries just by appliances on standby is equivalent to the output of 24 full-scale power stations? If we bring that back to the UK level, we can see that the savings that could be achieved through a proper campaign to inform people of what they can do simply by pushing a button would have far more impact than spending a lot of time reviewing the nuclear issue.

Norman Baker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government could do far more to reduce energy usefor example, they could be pressing for the redesign of appliances. Why do we still have so many fridges that perform so badly? Figures from the Government's performance and innovation unitthey must be accuratesuggest that every 1 spent on energy efficiency secures seven times more carbon displacement than spending 1 on nuclear power.

Colin Challen: Before   the hon. Gentleman moves on, I want to clarify one point relating to cost. I read an article by his esteemed colleague the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), who is the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, in the 29 December edition of The Times. Judging by that article, it seems that one of their party's main objections to nuclear is its cost. The Finns say that they have solved their problem by selling electricity supplies over a period of 60 years to companies, local authorities and others. Has the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) studied that example, and if so, how would he fault it?

Norman Baker: Over the years the nuclear industry has come up with various ingenious ways of funding itself, most of which involve public subsidy in some form. That will not change.

David Howarth: May I help my   hon. Friend out? The Finnish example is not an example of private funding. The consortium that is commissioning the nuclear power station in Finland contains one entirely nationalised power company and a number of local authorities, including the City of Helsinki. In addition, the Finnish Government are accepting residual liabilities in respect of both waste and decommissioning.

Norman Baker: That explains the Finnish example very well to those who would argue that it represents the renaissance of nuclear power.
	Nuclear will use up the available money. Gordon Mackerron, whom many hon. Members will know from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, has said:
	The nuclear industry's proposal for a 10GW programme would have crowded out most other generating investment.
	That is what the nuclear industry experts are saying. Most significantly, a major programme of nuclear investment would stifle the opportunity that exists now to decentralise the grid and to facilitate the small-scale, dispersed and highly efficient portfolio of renewables that is necessary to meet the White Paper objectives. We need to work towards a decentralised energy future, not one based on centralised generation in faraway locations and pylons stretching across the country. A different future is possible, but that alternative will be set aside for 20 or 25 years if we go for a new generation of nuclear power.

David Drew: The hon. Gentleman has not yet mentioned fusion. If he agrees that fusion is one of the future technologies, will he explain how he thinks we could achieve a world in which we can count on fusion without nuclear understanding?

Norman Baker: Our proposal is not about nuclear fusion, but we do not oppose continuing scientific investment in nuclear fusionalthough I have to say that over the years nuclear fusion has swallowed up a great deal of money and we have little to show for it, whereas if the money had been spent on renewables and energy efficiency we would be in a better position than we are today.
	I note that an early-day motion tabled by Labour Members in May last year stated that commissioning
	a new fleet of nuclear generating stations . . . would inevitably involve massive public subsidies which could be used to greater benefit in promoting the deployment of renewable generators and, most especially, the marine technologies of wave and tidal steam exploiting the uniquely rich natural energy resources of the United Kingdom.
	There is undoubtedly a strong feeling in the House, not confined to Liberal Democrat Members, that there is an alternative way forward that the Minister ought to grab. We cannot maintain the big tent philosophy that pretends that we can have everything; we cannot. If we have nuclear, everything else will be squeezed out. That is the message that the Government have not accepted, but they need to accept it before the review proceeds much further. There is not enough money for all the   technologies. The grid will be designed to serve the nuclear industry and will be counter-productive to the   decentralised energy future that I want us to have.
	It is worth pointing out that the Government's performance and innovation unit estimates that the unit electricity cost of the new AP1000 will be between 3p   and 4p per kWh, that of onshore wind 1.5p to 2.5p per kWh and that of offshore wind 2p to 3p per kWh.

Robert Goodwill: Is it not true that wind power needs back-up for when the wind is not blowing? Denmark relies heavily on wind power and when the wind stops blowing, the Danes have to switch on the cable from Germany. Some of the German power comes from nuclear generators, but much of it is generated by burning lignitebrown coal.

Norman Baker: If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we should not rely 100 per cent. on wind power, I   agree. That is not possible and I am not suggesting that we do that. We have always advocated a basket of renewable sources, including wind, tidal, solar and decentralised energy such as microgeneration and so on. We do not have to rely on one source. The great problem for advocates of nuclear power is that they have to pretend that the sole alternative is wind power, but that is not realistic.

Kevan Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Norman Baker: I will not give way again because I   have to bring my speech to a conclusion.
	The energy mix that works is one that minimises energy consumption in the first place. We could do a lot more in that respectwithout much difficulty we could cut our energy consumption by a third over a period of   25 years. Secondly, we should work to achieve decentralised energy and encourage householders to be part of the generation mix. Thirdly, we should have a basket of renewable sources, not only wind. Fourthly, and importantly, we should give serious consideration to carbon capture and storage and acknowledge that there may be a role in future for fossil fuels if they can be cleaned up. Of course, using fossil fuels and wind power and taking energy efficiency measures would help to meet our security of supply objectives, about which the Government are rightly concerned. A number of commercial sequestration projects are up and running in Norway, Canada and Algeriathe technology has been proved to work.
	I could say more but I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak. I shall conclude by saying that nuclear is a dodo that does not fly. If I wanted to extend the metaphor, I could say that it is a white elephant and a red herring as well. I ask the House to support the motion.

Malcolm Wicks: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	welcomes the recent announcement of an energy review to assess future options on both the supply and demand for energy including the role of civil nuclear power; and notes the Government's energy policy as set out in the 2003 Energy White Paper, to make progress towards the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, to maintain the reliability of energy supplies, to promote competitive markets in the UK and beyond and to ensure that every home is adequately and affordably heated.
	I welcome the debate at this important time for our energy policy. Although I agreed with little that the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said, I nevertheless congratulate him on securing the debate. In response to some noises on the Labour BenchesI hope that my colleagues will not mind my referring to them as noises on this occasionthe hon. Gentleman said they were seeking to divide his party. With that project, his party needs no help at present.
	The House is aware that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry have asked me to lead a review of UK energy policy, including civil nuclear power. The review is under way and proposals will be made by the summer. We will launch our consultation document with a written statement to the House on Monday. I hope that all Members will study that document and contribute to the important debate.
	The question has been raised of why we should have a review now.

Stewart Hosie: rose

Malcolm Wicks: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was about to ask that question. It would be sensible for me and for the House if I took one or two interventions, but not too many, as I know that many colleagues want to join in the debate and I want an opportunity to listen.

Stewart Hosie: Can the Minister confirm that when nuclear power is reviewed, there will be a direct comparison with other options so that, for example, a new nuclear power station at Hunterston may be compared directly with a wind farm with a biomass element to it for when the wind is not blowing? Will the Minister give a commitment that such direct comparisons of nuclear and other options will be put together in the review?

Malcolm Wicks: We will want to look at the cost comparisons, as well as other comparisons.
	Why have a review? The situation has moved on since we set out our energy policies in 2003. Our own energy output in the North sea has declined faster than anticipated and we have moved to being a net gas importer earlier than envisaged. We could become a net importer of oil, too, by the end of this decade. There have been changes beyond our borderswe have seen slower than expected liberalisation in the EU, leading to exposure to higher, more volatile prices. Global demand for energy has increased massively as economies such as   China's have boomed. China's energy demand is increasing by about 15 per cent. each year.
	There are lessons to be learned from these changing circumstances and from what we have already experienced this winter, both in the UK and overseas. The energy review is not a reaction to this winter, but a planned response to the lessons that we have learned and the changes that we have experienced since 2003. We are taking action now in order to keep us on track, or in some cases to put us back on track, for our long-term energy goals.
	Key questions need to be answered. How do we ensure affordable energy in the future? How do we deliver a 60   per cent. reduction in our carbon targets? How do we manage our reliance on imported gas? In a nutshell, how can we make sure that we have a fully fledged energy market that provides energy that is secure, affordable and clean? Those are big questions and they raise vital issues that are, of course, complex, intricate and interrelated. There are important links between any decisions that we make as a result of the review, including decisions on civil nuclear power.
	It will not come as a surprise when I say that we are not looking for simplistic yes or no responses to complex issues, particularly on civil nuclear power. The Liberal Democrat spokesman said a few moments ago that ifand it is a big ifwe go down the nuclear path again, there will be room for nothing else. With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is total nonsense. The name of the game is not to talk about enthusiasm for renewables, nuclear, biomass or wind turbines, but to ask a duller but perhaps more sensible question about how we build up 100 per cent. of energy supply, not the contribution that this or that technology might make30 per cent., 5 per cent. or 20 per cent.

Phil Willis: We accept that, in a liberalised energy market, it will be the suppliers of energy who make many of the significant decisions, and it will be for Government to create a framework within which those decisions can be made. Can the Minister give the House an example of   any company that has asked the Department for support to build a new nuclear power station since the last energy review?

Malcolm Wicks: No, I cannot do that. However, a number of companies have said to me that, just as in other nation states, it would need a lead from Government to provide a framework for companies to come forward. That is the political reality when it comes to civil nuclear energy.

David Hamilton: Is it not the case, however, that many companies running coal-fired power stations have already alerted the Department to the fact that if they do not get investment now, they cannot change to clean coal technology? There must be changes and decisions must be taken now.

Malcolm Wicks: Certainly, massive investment is required in infrastructure and power plants over the next 10, 20 or 30 years. People are looking forward eagerly to the results of the review on a wide range of topics. It is not a nuclear review, but as the Prime Minister made clear, in reviewing our energy policy and in the context of securing a diverseI emphasise diverseenergy mix, we need to consider the future role of civil nuclear power.
	Nuclear is already part of the mix. Nuclear energy accounts for about 19 per cent. of our electricity generation, but the current generating plants are ageing and most are scheduled to be decommissioned over the coming 15 years or so, as we have heard. As things stand, it is estimated that by 2020 only about 7 per cent. of our electricity might come from nuclear. From an international perspective, there are several countries showing interest in new nuclear build. China and India have a building programme under way, with more new reactors planned or at the proposal stage. Closer to home, Finland has started construction of a new plant, and France also has proposals for new plant.
	Nuclear might provide some of the answers going forward, but there are major factors to be considered, such as management of waste, costs and safety. We also need an evidence-based look at what new nuclear technologies can offer. Even if, and I emphasise that it is a big if, new nuclear could provide some of the answers, it could never be the whole picture. When we look not just at electricity but at UK energy consumption as a whole, including transport, we see that nuclear contributes 8 per cent.a significant percentage, but only 8 per cent.
	The Government are clear that, in making important decisions about energy policy, including nuclear, there should be the fullest public consultation. The document that we shall issue on Monday is part of that process. The Government are not, at this stage, presenting policy proposals. The hon. Member for Lewes rather implied that we were. He needs to wait. Before any decision to proceed with the building of a new generation of nuclear power plants, a further White Paper setting out our proposals would need to be published.
	The 2003 White Paper concluded that nuclear power was an important source of carbon-free electricity. It remains so. However, its economics made it an unattractive option then for new, carbon-free generating capacity, and there were also important issues of nuclear waste to be resolved. These issues included our legacy waste and continued waste arising from other sources. However, the White Paper did not rule out the possibility that at some point in the future new nuclear build might be necessary if we are to meet our carbon targets.
	The Government are aware that since the White Paper, new nuclear plants are being built in the far east and in Finland and that there have been a number of new studies on the costs of nuclear power. The review will therefore conduct a rigorous analysis and examine all the evidence on the economics of all forms of generation for both fossil fuel and low-carbon technologies.

Michael Weir: Will the review also look at the availability of uranium for the new nuclear stations and the fact that that is also a finite resource?

Malcolm Wicks: When we examine potential scenarios and test the nuclear hypothesis, uranium will require consideration. I understand that we already have a reasonable supply of uranium and that many of the deposits are in Australia and Canada.
	On the management of waste, we must demonstrate to the public that the legacy of nuclear waste is being tackled before we contemplate a new generation of nuclear reactors. A clear strategy is in place, and work is under way to tackle that legacy. We established the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which became effective in April last year, and it is setting a UK-wide strategy for more effective decommissioning and clean-up of its sites. It is responsible for the UK's civil nuclear sites and for setting an overall strategy for their safe,   secure, cost-effective and environmentally responsible decommissioning and clean-up, and it will drive improved clean-up performance through the introduction of site management competition.
	The independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management was set up to oversee a review of options for managing the UK's higher activity radioactive waste. CoRWM will recommend the option, or combination of options, that can deliver a long-term waste solution, providing protection for people and the environment. CoRWM is due to deliver its recommendations to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by July this year, and the UK Government and the devolved Administrations will decide policy and its means of delivery in that light.
	The failure of Governments and Parliaments to tackle the waste issue for several decades is a national disgrace and we must reach sensible conclusions to settle that national account. We cannot have a serious debate about ongoing nuclear until we have convinced Parliament and the public that we have implemented strategies to tackle the waste issue, and I think that the NDA takes us halfway there.

David Drew: My hon. Friend knows that Berkeley, the first nuclear power station to be decommissioned, is in my constituency, and he also knows that exciting moves are afoot to return the Berkeley site as near as possible to a greenfield site. Will he commend the people engaged in that work and support the industry's objective? Perhaps that is one way to address some of the legacy issues, which require answers.

Malcolm Wicks: The way in which we handle decommissioning in terms of not only waste but the local environment is critical.
	On skills and research, new nuclear build is not the   only issue that we should consider in relation to civil   nuclear power. The operation and eventual decommissioning of existing nuclear plant will require a highly skilled work force, which is why the Government have introduced measures to support and develop skills and research. The Cogent sector skills council was licensed last year, and it is taking a strategic view of the nuclear sector, ensuring that the education and training base can meet the needs of nuclear employers. Cogent is also working closely with the NDA and its contractors to ensure that the necessary skills are available and sustained.
	The research councils are playing their part in providing prospects for nuclear energy research. Opportunities for fission research are available as part of the initiative of Research Councils UK, towards a sustainable energy economy, and the UK is participating in the generation IV international forum, which plans a co-ordinated programme of international research into advanced reactor systems.
	Safety is a crucial issue, and the UK has an excellent record. Both the Government and the UK civil nuclear industry take very seriously their responsibilities for ensuring the safety of activities at nuclear installations. The stringent regulatory regime provides for the application of high standards of safety aimed both at minimising radiation exposures from normal operations and at preventing accidental releases of radioactivity at nuclear installations.

Norman Baker: Does the Minister regard the way in which the nuclear industry has dealt with the legacy problems at Sellafield as demonstrating proper regard for safety?

Malcolm Wicks: As I have said, the way in which Parliaments and Governments have handled the matter over several decades is a national disgrace, which indicates my feelings. The Government and I are determined to tackle those difficult and sometimes controversial issues.
	In conclusion, we will, of course, consider nuclear during the forthcoming review. It is a pity that there is not an opportunity to hold a wider debate, but opportunities have arisenthere will be moreto discuss other technologies such as renewables and the need for energy efficiency. Today, we are understandably focusing on one technology, civil nuclear, but we will not consider nuclear in isolation, because we do not see one technology as being a panacea for lowering emissions and ensuring reliable energy supplies. The challenge for serious people is not to advance the case for one technology that can contribute 5 per cent. or 30 per cent. of our supply, but to consider 100 per cent. supply.

Tobias Ellwood: Will the Minister take this opportunity to spell out the timetable? We hear that the review will report in the summer, but what will be its consequences? In a year's time, will we have a substantive timetable for understanding our energy requirements and how we will meet them?

Malcolm Wicks: Yes, I hope so. The Prime Minister has asked me to report to him and the Cabinet by the summer, so although we must conduct the review rigorously and spend time on it, there is a sense of urgency.
	I will not try to second-guess the outcome of the energy reviewthe Liberal Democrats have already done sobecause it would not be sensible. The Government are committed to a full assessment of a wide range of options, and we cannot pre-empt that consideration now. We need a rational, evidence-based, grown-up debate, which must involve experts, people in business, investors, people in the energy industry, scientists and academics.

Colin Challen: I am pleased to hear that the review will not be pre-empted. Will the Minister take this opportunity to put it on the record that the Government do not believe, as one of his predecessors said, that uranium is indigenous to this country or, as Lord Sainsbury of Turville said in the other place, that nuclear power is renewable? Neither of those two statements is sensible, rational or grown-up.

Malcolm Wicks: I have indicated my understanding that much of our uranium comes from Australia and Canadamy feel for geography is reasonable, but not advanced, so I can reassure my hon. Friend on at least one point.

Geraldine Smith: I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend say that the review will have a sense of urgency, because energy reviews have been conducted throughout my eight years in Parliament. When he conducts the consultation and meets a wide range of people, perhaps it would be useful to visit the two nuclear power stations in my constituency and talk to the trade union.

Malcolm Wicks: We will meet so-called stakeholders in every region of the country, and I am developing a programme of more public events. Indeed, my challenge to hon. Members is to lead the debate rationally in their own constituencies.

Geraldine Smith: Was that a yes or a no?

Malcolm Wicks: It was one of those.

Andrew Murrison: Will the Minister confirm that he will consult industry about increasing the efficiency of existing and future conventional power plants? My information is that Ministers and their officials have stonewalled those who seek to improve efficiency, but there seems to be the potential for some early gains. Will he meet Thermodyne, which is such a company based in my constituency?

Malcolm Wicks: I will certainly give that due consideration, although when I say that I want to meet a wide range of people, I am not saying that I want to meet everyone at the same time.
	The debate should not be just an expert debate, a business debate or an academic debate, although we need those dimensionsit must be a wider public debate. Hon. Members can help to lead that debate in their constituencies. I hope that it will be informed, rational and grown up; and I rather hope, against the odds, that the Liberal Democrats may yet choose to join in.

Alan Duncan: Tonight is an occasion on which Conservative Members find themselves in broad agreement with everything that the Minister has said. I approached the debate with a measure of hope and of despair. I hope that the energy review on which we embark on Monday will be a serious process in which both sides of the House will engage in the grown-up manner that the Minister described, but I   despair that, as we all try to address this matter, there is one party that has decided to close off the process from the start.
	We all have a profound responsibility to grapple with what is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems that we face as politicians and stewards of the interests of our country. We live in a rapidly changing world in   which our patterns of supply are uncertain, the technologies that govern our energy supply are changing very rapidly, and our growing concerns for the world in which we live, and the one that we will leave behind, are of paramount importance. We have profound responsibilities. Any of us who tries to live without electricity for a mere 48 hours can understand the significance of what energy means to us. We are, if not a nanosecond from, at leastas we saw in New Orleansonly thinly divided from complete chaos. The absence of energy in our working world would lead rapidly to that chaos.
	The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) asked, Why have this review? We need it because we cannot with certainty see the future, because the issue needs profound thought, and because the technology that governs it, and the world, is changing fast. If we do not engage in this reviewokay, we would rather have had it sooner, but none the less the process is now set in trainwe will not be fulfilling the responsibilities that we all have. The point about the energy world at the moment is that every single aspect is interrelated. We cannot consider one aspect of energy generation and supply without appreciating its effect on another aspect. We have to consider it overallgas, electricity, oil, nuclear and renewablesand try to understand how we can best serve the interests of the planet as well as our needs for energy.
	Our starting point is that Britain is heavily dependent on gas. The current investment climate in Britain means that the only decision that any private company will take is to build a gas-fired power station. That is not necessarily the best thing for our long-term future. The whole issue of energy efficiency is, rightly, on our political radar in a far more engaging way than it has ever been. That should have happened earlierperhaps some of us were a bit slow. The effects that CO 2 emissions are having on the world are better understood. Our dependency on certain sources of energy is growing. That could put us in a perilous position if the world is turned on its head with upheaval in one part of the globe. Our starting point has to be one of deep concern about how our energy supplies can be sustained and how the consequences of consuming energy can be acceptable for future generations.

Russell Brown: The hon. Gentleman is hinting at the question that I   want to ask him. For all the eight-plus years in which   I have been here, we have had debates about energy provision and how we manage to generate it. We have argued about nuclear and renewables, but the reality is that this is about meeting our own demands as best we can. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the big issue is whether we aim to be as self-sufficient as possible and, in particular, how we deal with the issue of imported gas, which arose earlier this month?

Alan Duncan: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There is no cross-party difference in trying to identify the seriousness of the issue.
	The hon. Gentleman's comments take me conveniently to the question of what alternatives now exist to the traditional patterns of energy supply that this country has enjoyed for decades. The fact isthis is another compelling reason for engaging seriously in this reviewthat science is changing very fast indeed. Instead of looking at renewables as a marginal and slightly quirky additional supply to our energy needs, we see that they can increasingly play a significant part in the energy mix that any country should set for itself. Today, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr.   Cameron) and I changed our personal domestic electricity supplies to eco-friendly sources. I am now getting my London electricity from Scottish hydro; my hon. Friend is getting his from a mixture of eco-friendly sources. That shows that science, technology, consumer power and the free choice that we can exercise can dramatically shape the energy market in which we work.
	Other technologies are developing. I used to be in the oil business, which was always seen as the demon of the   environment, but when we consider carbon recapture and Labour Members, in particular, consider coal, we can see that there are prospects for consuming clean coal. Fossil fuels may enjoy a longer lease of life with which we can happily co-exist than we would ever have expected 10 years ago. Science is changing dramatically. Technological progress in the transfer of emissions and the way in which the bad elements of energy consumption can be captured and stored are changing the whole nature of the debate.
	One cannot but ask whether nuclear power has a role in all this. Let me come clean. From about the age of 12, I have had an instinctive hostility to nuclear power. I   treat it with profound suspicion. In looking at nuclear technology, the wise course is to apply the precautionary principle and say that the onus is on those who say that nuclear power should be used to prove that it can overcome our doubts and fears, predominantly about its safety. The hon. Member for Lewes made some good arguments, which will have to go into the review, about the doubts that we may have about nuclear power. The first question is whether the economics work. Does the   fact that it is expensive to create, almost cost-free to run, and then so expensive to decommission mean that in a private market someone will make the investment, run it, and then skedaddle leaving someone else to pick up the pieces?
	That is a legitimate fear, which introduces another element into the debate, particularly in relation to security for the whole countrywhether there should be an element of state involvement in the nuclear sector if the private sector cannot, as the hon. Member for Lewes clearly thinks, ever seriously invest in nuclear energy in the long term.
	There are debates and doubts about the dangers of nuclear waste. A predominant fear is that great boxes of   waste are left glowing for thousands of years, improperly stored and leaking into our atmosphere. There are concerns about security as regards not only the elements needed to generate nuclear power, but the obvious security dangers that we face in the modern world. We must all take very seriously the danger of somebody trying to blow up an installation. There is the question of whether nuclear power will be able to do what it needs to do in the time scale that is required for the energy capacity that we need in the next 10 or 20 years.
	The environmental lobby is split on nuclear power. Some believe that it is a godsend for the environment and others think that it is a curse, which we should never touch.
	However, my main point tonight is concern about the Liberal Democrats' attitude to the issue. It is a little like Noddy and Big Ears. When Noddy built his house, he said, Let's put the roof on first so that, when it rains, we don't get wet. The Liberal Democrats have got matters upside down. It is irresponsible to begin a largely cross-party review on the most serious issue that will affect this   country for the next 50 years by reaching the conclusions at the start. A prejudicial approach and stance to such a serious issue is deeply irresponsible.

Tobias Ellwood: It is even more confusing given that last week the Liberal Democrats endorsed research into the use of nuclear energy, yet today they rule it out completely.

Alan Duncan: That is a minor sin compared with some others, with which I should like to enlighten the House.
	The speech of the hon. Member for Lewes was backward lookingit was atavistic. It referred only to mountains of waste and the problems of historic power generation. It tackled none of the arguments that the nuclear industry espouses for future generation.

Norman Baker: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. We are dealing with that.

Alan Duncan: If that is the case, why do not the Liberal Democrats engage in the review? Those of us who watch the Liberal Democrats are entitled to examine the genuine natureas they would have itof their approach to the issue. The party is riven, even on its Front Bench.

Norman Baker: Riven?

Alan Duncan: Yes, riven. Split, if the hon. Gentleman would like a simpler word.

Colin Challen: It is truly depressing to witness the breakdown in the cross-party consensus that was launched last year on climate change, which must affect energy policy. However, is the hon. Gentleman trying to have his cake and eat it? The Conservative party's review will report a year after the Government's. I   wonder whether that will give the new Conservative party enough time to shift its stance to whatever public opinion says it should be.

Alan Duncan: As the hon. Gentleman can see, I do not eat much cake.
	Let us consider the opinions of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). In a recent interview in the Sunday Herald, he stated:
	If, as may be the case, the answer were to be nuclear, in those circumstances it would not give me a problem. It would be responsible to consider nuclear as one of the options .
	He added that nuclear could be the least worst option for guaranteeing security of supply. He went on:
	If nuclear fulfilled the criteria I set out, it would not give me the level of worry it gives other people. I see no reason to rule it out on emotional grounds. We need honest information.
	Indeed, we do. We all seek honest information.
	However, it gets worse for the Liberal Democrats. Theiras he terms himselfshadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), wrote a good article in The Times on 29 December. It states:
	For politicians to be 'pro' or 'anti' nuclear makes no more sense than to be 'for' and 'against' silicon chips or aeroplanes. The issue is about the relative risks and costs.
	That is our view. He continued:
	Yet it is hard to sustain the argument that infant industry arguments still apply to the industrial equivalent of 40-year-olds in nappies. If the nuclear industry becomes fully potty-trained and no longer demands subsidies or guarantees or that taxpayers pay for safe waste disposal and decommissioning, then it merits a fresh look . . . Dogma about new nuclear power is unhelpful, for and against.
	One must cast doubt on whether the hon. Member for Lewes is yet fully potty trained.
	The motion represents a prejudicial approach to a serious review and the hon. Member for Lewes, who is not the Trade and Industry spokesman for his party, is at variance with his Exchequer spokesman, his Trade and Industry spokesman and the Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. We are witnessing the lot of the Liberal Democrat through the ages: impotence without responsibility.
	If the hon. Member for Lewes is so certain that the nuclear option should not be entertained, he was duty bound to tell the House, with the same certainty, how his party would fill the ensuing generation gap.

Norman Baker: I did.

Alan Duncan: I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's speech. I was out of the Chamber for only two minutes, during which I asked someone to ensure that I knew what was happening. The hon. Gentleman said nothing about how the gap would be filled. A sweeping mention of renewables is not the answer because the capacity does not currently exist. He made no comments about whether fossil fuels might become more acceptable, with a new lease of life.

Norman Baker: I mentioned carbon capture.

Alan Duncan: If the hon. Gentleman is banking on carbon capture, let him say how we shall get the capacity we need in time to keep the generators going.
	Being pro nuclear should not be used as an excuse for not doing other things. We are impelled to consider all alternatives, especially those that are most friendly to the planet, if we are to solve the problem. However, being pro other things should not be used as an excuse not to reappraise the nuclear option. The Liberal Democrats' approach is fundamentally irresponsible at a time when all hon. Members need to tackle the issue with the seriousness that it deserves.

Michael Meacher: As the energy review gets under way, one assumption goes almost unchallenged. It is that renewables alone cannot fill the looming energy gapa point that has just been madeand that, therefore, a revival of civil nuclear power is inevitable. I believe that to be false.
	Before I give my reasons, I emphasise that no satisfactory explanation has been given for the energy review, given that the Government carried out a full-scale, thorough and comprehensive investigation, over two to three years, leading to the energy White Paper of February 2003. Events since thenincreasing dependence on foreign supplies of gas and oil and high oil and gas priceswere long anticipated and only reinforced the conclusions that were reached at that time. They do not alter them in any way.
	As the Minister for Energy rightly said, nuclear accounts for approximately 19 per cent. of electricity generation and, as the Magnox and advanced gas-cooled reactors are decommissioned, it will reduce to around 7 per cent. by 2020. Let us assumeI am the first to admit that it is not certainthat gas generation of electricity may increase slightly by 2020 and that coal generation may decrease slightly. The main question is whether the gap from the 12 per cent. reduction in nuclear will be filled by a new programme of nuclear build or by renewables. That is the central issue.
	The Government already have a commitment to achieving a target of obtaining 10 per cent. of our electricity from renewables by 2010, and an aspiration to reach 20 per cent. by 2020. Of course, it is true that renewables generation is starting from a low base. However, the proportion of electricity that they provide has almost doubled in the past four years, and it is now sufficient to supply more than 2 million households.The argument for relying on renewables alone to fill the gap is very strong, because nuclear power is beset by several severe problems that, in my view, rule it out as a sensible option. I am not against it being considered; I am simply saying that, when we do so, it will be ruled out for very good reasons, ifand this is the big questionan effective alternative is available.
	First, there is the question of cost. The Government's own advisory body, the performance and innovation unit, has calculated that the cost of electricity in the UK in 2020 is likely to be about 1.5p per kWh from on-land wind; 2p to 3p from offshore wind; 2p to 2.3p from gas; 3p to 3.5p from coal; and 3p to 4p from nuclear power. I am aware that the nuclear industry is saying that the AP1000 series reactor will be cheaper than that, as the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) pointed out. However, he also made the key point that no prototype has yet been built to prove that assumption. We simply do not know whether it will be the case. We can be certain, however, that the cost of nuclear-generated electricity will be significantly higher ifas should be the case if we are to have a level playing fieldthe cost of decommissioning the nuclear plant and of the waste management is to be factored into the price. That is a crucial consideration.

David Chaytor: In regard to the list of comparative costs that my right hon. Friend has cited, is not a further factor the measure of reliability of estimating those costs? Is not the reliability of estimating the costs of onshore and offshore wind power generally deemed to be higher than the reliability of estimating the costs of nuclear generation?

Michael Meacher: My hon. Friend makes a very fair point; I would endorse that.
	The Government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has already said that the cost that taxpayers will have to bear from decommissioning nuclear plantto be fair, this includes military as well as civil installationswill be about 56 billion. That relates to operations over the whole of the past half century. It is an astronomically high cost to the taxpayer, amounting to about 5 per cent. of our entire gross domestic product. If these enormous external liabilities were to be written in to the consumer pricewhich might be the right thing to donuclear power would be nowhere near competitive. Alternatively, they could be left as a huge tax burden for future generations, but would anyone seriously suggest that that was a fair and reasonable option?
	Nuclear power has other drawbacks. We already have 10,000 tonnes of highly toxic intermediate and high-level nuclear waste, mainly at Sellafield. That waste has a half-life of tens of thousands of years, and nobody knows how to dispose of it safely. The Finns think that they might have a solution, but that has not yet been proven. An official estimate in a DTI White Paper is that, even without any new nuclear build, decommissioning will increase the amount of waste 50-fold to 500,000 tonnes by the end of this century. Is it rational or responsible to create yet more mountains of dangerous waste before we have found a satisfactory form of long-term disposal for the gigantic quantity that we already have? I am glad that the Minister also asked that question.
	We must also take into account the risk of nuclear proliferation and the dangers, post-9/11, of a terrorist attack. A recent US study estimated the health impact of an attack on a nuclear reactor at 44,000 immediate deaths, with 500,000 long-term health impacts, including cancers. It is therefore quite clear that nuclear power should be avoided. As I have said, I am not against looking into the matter, but there seems to be very clear evidence that we should avoid itif we can. Can renewables realistically fill the gap? The independent consultant, Oxera, recently predicted that the Government will virtually achieve their target of 10 per cent. of electricity generation from renewables by 2010. The EU renewable energy directive already stipulates 22 per cent. electricity generation from renewables for Europe by 2010, so the UK is likely to come under a great deal of pressure, perhaps mandatory pressure, to move swiftly to reach 20 per cent. as soon as possible after that date.
	The question is whether that is realistic. The fact that it is realistic is shown by the performance of other states. At a timeI am talking about 2001, when these figures were compiledwhen Sweden generated 57 per cent. of its electricity from renewables, including hydro, Finland 33 per cent., Portugal 30 per cent., and Italy, Denmark, Spain and France all between 13 and 19 per cent., the UK managed just 2.7 per cent. It is not that the UK lacks potential; it simply has not been exploited.
	The UK has about 40 per cent. of Europe's potential wind power, but we are using less than 1 per cent., so there can be no serious doubt about the fact that the 12 per cent. gap that will be left by nuclear by 2020, and significantly more, can be fully met by renewables alonewithout the higher costs, without the environmental and health hazards, and without the terrorist risks of nuclear.
	It is equally clear that we do not need nuclear to achieve our Kyoto climate change obligations if there is a better alternative available, as there clearly is. Even AEA Technology, the former research arm of the Atomic Energy Authority, thought that a quarter of Britain's electricity needs could be met by building the world's largest complex of wind farms

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The eight-minute rule is now in operation.

Andrew Stunell: I want to concentrate on issues relating to nuclear waste disposal. Everyone agrees that solving that problem is the precondition for nuclear to go ahead in the future. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) might want to read my two books on the subject, or possibly the Liberal Democrat policy document Conserving the Future, which was published in September 2004. It will give him the answers he seeks. There are engineering and scientific issues to be dealt with, as well as economic and environmental issues and social and political issues. The hon. Gentleman making attacks in such a way trivialises the issue.
	Since the publication of our proposals, plenty has happened in relation to nuclear power. Some of it has been positive, such as the creation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which has separated the generation of waste from disposal. It was absolutely right to do that. Other examples are the free-standing commission to establish the process and the options for dealing with waste, the Committee on Radioactive Waste ManagementCoRWM. It was absolutely right to set that up, and I was happy to play a part in the Energy Act 2004, ensuring that it went forward.
	We also need to recognise the fact that some negative things have happened as well. British Energy went bust. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. accidentally released a swimming-bathful of radioactive liquidnever mind a football pitch. The Department of Trade and Industry estimate for managing waste has gone up from 48 billion to 56 billion, and is about to go up yet again, as we have heard. We now know that the British Energy costs taken over by the Government will amount to 3.3 billion, starting with 10 yearly payments of 181 million.
	How one adds those figures up and the outcomes that one gets are difficult and controversial matters. One can argue about discounted costs, undiscounted costs and so on, but no one doubts that a huge amount of taxpayers' money has already been committed to the clean-up, and an even bigger sum is to follow. We have not got to the end of it yet. My hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) referred to the situation at Dounreay and the possible 70 billion extra for clearing up the beaches and the seabed there.
	All the enormous costs referred to so far relate to cleaning up, decommissioning and making safe, not to ultimate safe keeping. That is not in the figures we have discussed. What happens to the spent fuel rods, the reactor housings and the contaminated pipe work and, for that matter, what will happen to the 10,000 metallic radioactive particles on the seabed at Dounreayis still not known by anybody. Nobody knows how much it will cost and where it will all go.
	The Government answer to all such questions is, We   don't know yet, but we are looking for a man who does. Of course, that is through the CoRWM process. I welcome the setting up of CoRWM, which has covered quite a lot of ground. In fact, it has covered morespace, sea and the four corners of the universe to see whether there is somewhere it can send the waste. However, as the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee pointed out in December 2004, CoRWM is in some real difficulty, and there were trenchant criticisms of it in that report. The Government responded last February, and the House of Lords responded again to the Government, rebutting their complacency, in April last year. The report referred to the narrow scientific base of what CoRWM was doing. It also noted with concern the suspension of one member of CoRWM and the request that another be suspended. It went on to say:
	We have already stated our concern as to the level of expertise on CoRWM; it would be extremely unfortunate if this expertise were further diluted through the loss of two members with relevant technical experience.
	Have things improved since? No, they have not. In the British Medical Journal, on 10 December, the two suspended members made the point that
	the committee now has less than a year to formulate its advice
	and that the
	latest independent review is sceptical that there will be a successful outcome.
	I want to hear the Minister confirm that he believes that the timetable of July this year can be stuck to, I want him to tell us why there are no replacements for the experts needed on CoRWM, and I want him to say that the credibility of CoRWM remains intact despite its difficulties.
	We are a long way from settling the issue of how to dispose of nuclear waste, let alone of where to dispose of it and how to pay for it. The proponents of a new generation of investment in nuclear now say that that does not really matter, because it is all legacy waste. From now on, they say, there will not be a problem, as the new nuclear industry will be virtually waste-free. Yes, there is an issue with historic waste, they say, but future waste volumes will be so small that we will not even notice them. A few years ago, they used to say that nuclear power would be so cheap that there would be no need to meter it. Now they say that it is so clean that there is no need to clean up after it. Both claims are straight from the fantasy world of pro-nuclear lobbyists.
	A few minutes ago, I mentioned that CoRWM might be afflicted by a credibility problem. I am sure that when the Minister replies he will say that CoRWM is a very credible body, which has carried out careful study and has expert advice in its support as well as high-quality research and sound and sustainable facts and figures. I   hope that he will say that, because I want to quote some of the figures that CoRWM has brought into the public domain.
	CoRWM says that the total of high-level waste if a new generation of nuclear plants is builtits working assumption was 10 nuclear plantswill rise from just over 8,000 cu m to 39,000 cu m. That is five times as much as we would have if those 10 new nuclear plants were not builta five-fold increase. What does the industry say about that? British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. told the Science and Technology Committee that there would be a 10 per cent. risenot a five-fold risein nuclear waste. It used that dodgy statistic to persuade the committee to say to the House that nuclear waste issues should not be a bar to future building. The nuclear industry now says:
	We're not fiddling the figures. It's just a different way of measuring it.
	The difference, however, is between the right way of measuring it and the wrong way of measuring it.
	No one yet knows how, where or when this country can safely store its nuclear waste. No one can be sure of the cost, although we know that it will be in the multi-billions and will pose problems for centuries, not just decades. We also know that a new generation of nuclear build will massively increase the amount of high-level waste to be disposed of. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) has spelt out the cost, the folly and the risks of new investment in nuclear power. I hope that I have cast some light on the unanswered challenge of dealing with an increasing mound of radioactive waste that nobody knows how to deal with.

Geoffrey Robinson: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate. I congratulate the Government on their review, and I must take issue with my colleagues on the Government Benches who feel that it is unnecessary. The security and supply of energy is of huge national importance, and we must keep it under regular review. I   say that because, in terms of energy supply and security, things have changed dramatically in the short period of eight years since the Government took office.
	I can tell my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, who is conducting the review, that on the basis of some experience I think it might have been better to make it independent, and that there may be a case for regular independent reviews of the security and diversity of energy. I say that I speak on the basis of some experience because in November 1997, shortly after our party took office, we underwent the first crisis of that Labour Government. We suddenly discovered that we were to close half the coal pits, and that coal was finished as an industry. We saw the collapse of the British coal industry. We could look forward to virtually all our energy supply for the next 50 years being delivered in the form of imported gas, mainly from the Transcaucasus, but no one seemed terribly worried about the prospect.
	I posed two questions, and expensive consultants were commissioned to consider them. My questions were What about gas prices?at that time, gas was attractive on cost groundsand What about security of supply? The eminent and expensive consultants responded that there had never been an interruption of supply, and that they did not expect one. The confrontation between Ukraine and Russia in recent months put paid to that argument. Their other response was that they saw no great threat to the stability of gas   prices, which would remain advantageous in comparison with the price of other energy sources. The situation following the ill-fated intervention in Iraq has put paid to that argument as well.
	I do not exaggerate much when I say that, in a nutshell, that was the advice that I was given. It was pursued, and much resulted from the review, not least the continuing argument about where we are today. As I have said, I welcome my right hon. Friend's review, and I ask my hon. Friends to bear in mind that great changes take place. In 1997 there was hardly a mention of renewables, or of their importance. Emissions and the link with energy policy barely got a look in, and energy saving was scarcely considered. The argument was, Close down coal. Coal and gas-fired plants are finished. Face reality. Sack 5,000 miners, and let us be done with it.
	I prayed for a turf war between the Departments in Whitehall at the time. There was not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere. There was unanimity in Whitehall. Over the weekend, I read in the national press that we now look forward to a third, or perhaps half, of the next generation of power stations being coal-fired. So things do change, and I ask my hon. Friends to keep an open mind.
	I do not think that the Liberal Democrats are approaching the idea of an energy review in the right way. I do not wish to intervene in the war between parties over who shall come second, but I thought that   the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr.   Duncan) made a very good speech. His tone was right, as was the balance of his argument. This is a cross-party issue. There is no party political divide, as there inevitably is on such matters as social policy, taxation policy and, for that matter, health policy. This issue comes down to an evidence-based, hard-headed assessment of where the national interest lies. I shall return to that shortly.
	I also welcome the terms of reference of the review. I   hope it will constitute a starting point, enabling us to examine issues in the future. The review that I was instrumental in commissioning in 1997 was intended to deal with the coal crisis. The 2003 review posed a question that it left unanswered. It is no good Labour Members saying that we do not need a review; we must have one, because the last one left the nuclear issue open, and it will not go away.
	Unlike the Liberal Democratsand perhaps even my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), who speaks so eloquently and passionately about these mattersI am not prejudging the issue. We must not do that: we must view it in a hard-headed way. I share the instinctive dislike of the negative aspects of nuclear energy that is felt by all Members, but I do not believe that it can be ruled out a priori, particularly on emotional grounds.
	What we need from the Government is a reviewnot every year, but every three to five yearsof where we are in relation to our stated objectives. It must start with some really reliable facts and comparative data about the different aspects of production costs. There is no way of avoiding that, although it has not happened so far. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton mentioned the Cabinet Office performance unit. I doubt whether that is where we get such information from. I am not prejudging the review in any way, but I shall be surprised if it bears out that information. We do not have good figures on which to base our assumptions.
	When I said that an independent review would have been much better, I had in mind the Turner review of pensions, which set a good precedent in so many ways. It did not flinch from posing the very difficult questions, or from spelling out the assumptions on which it was working. Nor did it flinch from taking a long-term view,   which Governments have an instinctive and understandable dislike of doing. If any issue needs such an approach, it is energy. The decisions that we make now will take effect in 10 or 20 years' time, and if we can, we must lookwith some degree of caution, of courseto 30, 40 or even 50 years hence.
	The review needs to spell out its underlying assumptions, so that we can test their realism, to look at security of supply in the harsh light of reality, and to provide reliable and generally agreed up-to-date production data for renewables, for example. It needs to spell out the real prospects for renewables. Some Members are confident that we will meet our renewables targets, but some other people are not. However, nobody is making a realistic assessment of the current situation. As has been pointed out, we have only just embarked on the renewables programme; we do not yet know what the outcome will be, which is why we must keep it under review.
	I welcome the review and I look forward to debating it in the House. I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on enabling us to debate it while it is still under way, but it is clear that we will need to debate it again when it comes before the House. I hope that, in doing so, we shall make a hard-headed assessment of where our national interest lies, rather than taking a party position based on emotional or other grounds.

Robert Goodwill: I am grateful to the Liberal Democrats for scheduling this debate, which has given the Government and the official Opposition a good opportunity to make a compelling case for a return to two-party politics. With the benefit of hindsight, when the good Lord decided where to allocate the world's hydrocarbon reserves, it was a bad day for Him and not the best decision that He might have made. Mesopotamia was the site of the Garden of Eden, but things have moved on since then. The middle east has become a particularly unstable area, and we do not know what to expect from the former Soviet Union, either. Last week's debate on security of energy supply starkly outlined the worrying prospect of our being in the position of Ukraineof being held to ransom by another, possibly unstable regime in the former Soviet Union or the middle east. I   should at this point draw Members' attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests as a Gazprom shareholder. I should also add that President Putin did not consult me before taking action against Ukraine.
	It was a better decision of the Almighty to locate the majority of the planet's uranium in Canada and Australia, two stable and friendly countries. The known supply of uranium will last 80 years

Michael Weir: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that according to the European Union's energy Green Paper, the known uranium resource will last only 42 yearsa vastly reduced time?

Robert Goodwill: I am grateful for that question. I was in Canada in the summer with the all-party group on nuclear energy. We spoke to Canada's uranium mining industry, which assured us that it has 80 years-worth of supply. However, it also pointed out that there is no incentive to look for further uranium, given the existing supply, and that many modern reactors can also burn   thorium, which there is more of in the world than   uranium. Moreover, there is the prospect of a fast-breeder reactor programme when the uranium runs out. So there is no doubt that, if the Government announce a new nuclear build programme, there would be plenty of uranium to fuel it.
	We have two responsibilities, the first of which is to ensure that the lights stay on in this country for the sake of our economy, for our hospitals and schools, and for our elderly, who need heat in winter. It is also true that despite increases in fuel efficiency, modern economies such as ours have continued to use more and more energy. We are seeing a move to more air conditioning in the summer, and I suspect that it will not be long before peak demand in this country will not be in winter but in summer. We also have an obligation to meet our Kyoto emissions commitments. We cannot do both without new nuclear build.
	In September 2004, I went to Hartlepool, where a by-election was being held. I do not want to take the credit for our coming fourth in that by-election but it was interesting to talk to people on the doorstep about the issues that concerned them, bearing in mind that Hartlepool has an advanced gas-cooled reactor. The biggest environmental issue there was not nuclear, but the ghost shipsthe former American navy ships that were being towed to Hartlepool to be decommissioned.

Tobias Ellwood: My hon. Friend's valid point, which has been echoed in the Chamber, concerns education. Does he agree that some of the best-informed people on nuclear energy in this country are those who live close by nuclear reactors?

Robert Goodwill: That is true. At the Hartlepool nuclear station, there is an energy centre where children can go to learn about nuclear energy, and the same is true at Sellafield. I am sorry to say that organisations such as Greenpeace do themselves few favours in the way that they inform people; in fact, I think they are more in the business of scaremongering than peddling information.

Adam Afriyie: Does my hon. Friend share my alarm at the hysteria radiating from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and agree that when it comes to discussing energy, we should be calm, considered, logical and robust?

Robert Goodwill: I am grateful for that intervention. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats have being listening too much to Greenpeace and its scaremongering. The worst things in the ghost ships were asbestos, which is found in many buildings around this city and can be dealt with competently, and some PCBs in the electrical wiring. No. 3 on the list of toxic products in the ghost ships was fuel oil.
	Casting my mind further back, I recall the Brent Spar. Greenpeace said that that platform was full of nasty products and could not be sunk in the sea, but had to apologise because the platform was basically full of concrete. We must bear it in mind that organisations such as Greenpeace are political organisations and the scares that they peddle in the media translate to people making donations to them. We cannot expect to get a balanced opinion from them. Most people in this country get their opinion on nuclear from watching episodes of The Simpsons, and we need to make the case for nuclear and not just steamroller it through.
	Safety is my primary concern. In 1999, I visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It was the   only place in Ukraine where we saw a statue of Lenin, which, as it was contaminated, was cheaper to leave than to remove. We know of the devastation caused in that part of Ukraine and southern Belarus following the   accident in 1986. When we passed through the checkpoint, we were surprised that it took another 20 minutes to arrive at the station, such is the area of Ukraine that is now condemned for many hundreds of years and where people will not live. We visited the deserted town of Pripyat and went into the control room where the unsanctioned experiments were carried out. At Chernobyl, I was most alarmed by the vehicle graveyard. It consists of mounds covering some 250 acres, which our Ukrainian hosts said contained the vehicles used in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In answer to our question about the vehicles' drivers, we were told that they were heroes of the Soviet Union.
	We must not allow another Chernobyl to take place, but I do not think that such an accident could happen in the west, as we have a different safety culture and our reactors use secondary containment and core catchers. I   believe that our licensing system will ensure that reactor designs sanctioned in this country will be nothing like the ones adopted in the Soviet Union. I used to drive a Lada; it was very unreliable, but my experiences with it did not mean that I never wanted a car again.
	Another problem is the way in which the nuclear industry is treated in the media. Last year, two workers were sadly killed in a nuclear power station in Japan. The story was all over the newspapers, but the men were killed by a steam leak in the turbine room. That accident could have happened in any type of power station, but it just so happened that a nuclear power station was involved. The media always get very hysterical about nuclear power, and we must cut through that hysteria and look at the facts.
	We also need to deal with the problem of waste. I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will know the old joke about how many nuclear physicists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is 100one to change the bulb, and 99 to decide what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years.
	In Canada, it was interesting to meet Liz Dowdeswell, who came to that country's nuclear waste commission with impeccable green credentials. She is not exactly Canada's Jonathon Porritt, but she is along those lines. The Canadians have looked at the waste problem in a very logical way. I am pleased that our radiological waste management committee in the UK will produce a draft report in April, as we cannot go ahead with new nuclear build until we have an adequate answer to the waste problem. Initially, much of the waste will have to be stored at power stations. After that, we will have to   find long-term depositories, but the waste will have   to remain accessible as we may need to use it again in the future.
	I welcome the energy review commissioned by the Government. I reject the Liberal Democrat motion, which shuts too many doors without looking at the possibilities. I really believe that nuclear power will have a part to play in the future, and I hope that the Government come to that decision.

Joan Walley: I wanted to speak in last week's debate on the energy review, and was sorry not to have had an opportunity to do so. I am therefore very pleased to be able to contribute to this debate, but I have to say that the eight minutes available to Back-Bench speakers is nowhere near enough. The same is true of the four hours available last week.

Simon Burns: Get on with it then.

Joan Walley: Never mind about thatmy plea to Ministers is to ensure that sufficient time is made available in this Parliament for a properly informed debate on all aspects of energy generation and supply and demand in the energy market.
	The House needs no reminding about the scale of the challenge. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was right to make climate change one of the top priorities for our G8 and EU presidencies. We can also be proud of the way in which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has led the debate, both nationally and internationally, but time is running out. Wake-up calls have come from people such as James Lovelock and   Lester Brown, as well as from David King, the Government's scientific adviser, to the effect that the   real threat from climate change is greater than the threat from terrorism. We must make sure that this House is involved in the entire debate about the energy review.
	Earlier, the question was raised as to whether an energy review is really necessary, but I do not see how things now are all that much different from the position in 2003. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) to the extent that things do change, but I maintain that we must set out our route and our objectives so that we can ensure that we remain on target and that we do not go off in another direction.
	My fear is that the question of nuclear power may be a Trojan horse. We must not be pulled off course, and that means that a level playing for the review is absolutely essential. We must also ensure that the other Government reviews that are under way, including the Stern review from the Treasury, the climate change review and the review of renewables, are part and parcel of the consultation that will be formally announced on 23 January.
	We should put on the record the importance of cutting UK carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 by 60 per cent., with progress made by 2020; of the need to maintain the reliability of energy supplies; of promoting competition and competitive markets in the UK and beyond; and of ensuring that everyone's home is adequately and affordably heated. Those are the key components of our energy strategy and those objectives are as valid today as they were in 2003.
	Given that we are now about to embark on a further review, I want my hon. Friend the Minister to respond to some of my concerns. Will he give the House an   undertaking that the review will be open and transparent? I have fears about the advisers who will give evidence and provide briefings and written reports. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider whether all the information that he gets could be made available to the House through the Library. We also need to know whether we will have a register of interests for those submitting evidence to the review. It is important to know where they are coming from and whether they have any other motive for the advice that they give to the Government.
	Ministers should also consider ways of making regular statements to both Houses of Parliament and ensuring that Members can access all the information, so that we are equipped to invite the general public to take part in the debate. In that way, we can see what can be done at a local level to meet all the objectives that the Government have already set.
	We also need a full appraisal of all the costs associated with the energy review. That appraisal must not be flawed. In 1998, for example, the non-fossil fuel levy provided billions of pounds to the nuclear industry, and it was clear that that subsidy helped to support technologies and keep costs low. Therefore, we need a similar calculation of how similar investment in renewables could affect future costs. The same certainty is needed when it comes to the time scales for planning and development. It is interesting that there has so far been no rush to build new nuclear plants. We need to ask where the up-front capital to do so will come from, when revenue streams from a new generation of nuclear power will be many years down the line. Once there are new nuclear power stations, the investors will need long-term guarantees of take-up, but that is likely to mean major problems for the structure of the energy market. Whatever is said about a mix of nuclear and renewables, if the Government choose to pick winners in that way, it could shut off developments in microchip and renewables. Major investment in nuclear power would not necessarily be compatible with renewables. We have to have a level playing field so that we do not rule out all the other options.
	I do not have time tonight to address the issues of waste or risk assessment, or the huge opportunities that the Government had in 2003 to ensure that every Department, from the Treasury to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, did more, in a joined-up way, on energy efficiency, changing building design standards and other issues. So much depends on how the Government undertake the energy review and how they address energy efficiency. Parliament needs to know how we are to be involved. Does the Minister recognise the expertise of Select Committees? Is there a framework whereby Select Committees, perhaps through the Liaison Committee, could have input?
	What matters is that we have a full investigation of all the options. There will be no thanks if we get the energy review right, but we shall never be forgiven if we get it wrong. At this eleventh hour, I urge the Minister to ensure that there is a genuine commitment to full disclosure, full public input

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady's time is up.

Vincent Cable: My name has been called in aid a couple of times this evening, notably by the Conservative spokesman, who rather mischievously tried to generate a split that does not exist. I entirely agree with what my party's spokesman said in his introductory remarks. He made an extremely forceful statement of what he and I believe. It is our common position.
	The question we need to address is not why we need a reviewbecause, of course, evidence constantly needs to be reviewedbut why we need a comprehensive review of a review. The Minister for Energy attempted to address that question and advanced a couple of argumentsdeclining production in the North sea and increased imports of gasas to why circumstances had changed since 2003 when the excellent report appeared. I am sure that he is aware that both those trends were discussed at considerable length in the 2003 report, so I   remain puzzled about why it is regarded as an unsatisfactory basis for discussion and debate.
	The report's introduction was by the Prime Minister, who made it clear that the review was not just for three years but until 2050. It mobilised all the resources of the   Government, from the dispassionate position of the Cabinet Office. It was in no sense an anti-nuclear document; it argued for keeping the nuclear option open and investing in international collaborative research. It was extremely open-minded. I have been re-reading it   to   try to understand why the Government are so uncomfortable with it and why they want to take a fresh look at the situation.
	Two passages of the report are particularly devastating. In an overall attempt to make a balanced assessment of nuclear power, it refers to the main focus of public concern about nuclear power and what it describes as the
	unsolved problem of long-term nuclear waste disposal,
	which, as my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for   Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), clearly and forcefully set out, is still unsolved. The report is reasonably open-minded about the underlying economics. It states:
	Nuclear power seems likely to remain more expensive than fossil fuel generation.
	It does not say that it definitely will be more expensive, and concludes:
	Because nuclear is a mature technology, within a well-established global industry, there is no current case for further Government support.
	If a private company is willing, considering the current economics of the world energy market, to put its shareholders' funds into initiating a project, which of course meets the regulatory, safety and waste disposal requirements and the decommissioning costs, I do not think that anybody on the Liberal Democrat Benches would quarrel with that judgment, although there may be somebody who has a fundamentalist objection. However, the 2003 energy review argued that there was   no justification, in any circumstances, for the Government to use public money or public guarantees to underwrite such a business decision.
	There is, of course, an argument for protecting new industries in certain circumstances. That is why we have the renewable energies obligation; new technologies need a breathing space and the cross-subsidy that they receive. Nuclear power is in a quite different category and does not justify Government support. That is the point made by the 2003 review and it is that conclusion that the Government now find so uncomfortable.
	To understand whether there is any intellectual basis for that view, rather than merely political pressure, I   turn to the two points made by the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), who was genuinely trying to address the problem. He says that two things have changed. First, we have had a price shock in both gas and oil. Does that change the picture? Secondly, there are new issues that relate to the security of supply. Let us address each of them briefly.
	There has been a price shock, which was not anticipated or described in detail. What is the logic of that? What will happen? Anyone who spent years in the energy industry, as I did, trying to anticipate the prices of oil and gas, knows that they cannot be predicted. An awful lot of people have lost a lot of moneyperhaps the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) is one of themtrying to predict those prices by extrapolation and been terribly wrong.
	The logic of the position is that if we are indeed heading for a period of much higher oil and gas priceswe may be for all I know, but I think it unlikelythose entrepreneurs who want to invest in nuclear power now have an added reason for investing their shareholders' funds in that way and in taking the risks involved. However, it is more likely that higher prices will encourage more investment in exploration, which is happening already in the North sea, and the pressure on conservation will increasea trend that is taking place already. The prices will therefore subside in a few years. I do not know that they will subside, but it seems logical that they could do so. If that were to happen, it would be doubly expensive for the Government to commit themselves now to guarantees and subsidies. Either way, the experience of having had a brief oil shock in no way changes the logic of the 2003 review.
	The other point made by the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West related to the security of supply. Of course, we must be prudent. There are genuine political issues to addressthey are not just ones of   nasty economics and costs. He made the point that   Russia and Ukraine have had a dispute about the   pipeline through Ukraine. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union never disrupted supplies, those two countries have been arguing about price and behaving in a threatening and rather self-defeating way. Although there was possibly only one day on which supplies were disrupted before those countries came to their senses, that was a worrying episode none the less, and people would be foolish to disregard it.
	The conclusion that we must reachit is the one that the report drewis that we must have diversity of natural gas supplies, so that we are not exposed to disruption. If my memory serves me correctly, there are two major pipeline systems through eastern Europe and two major pipeline systems through the Mediterranean. In a couple of years or so, when the Isle of Grain project is completed, the diversity of supply will increase substantially with liquefied natural gas. Britain will then have a built-in diversity of supply, as the energy review acknowledged three years ago.

Adam Afriyie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Vincent Cable: I only have 45 seconds.
	Neither of those considerations therefore changes the fundamentals of the argument. That leads me to question why we must have another review of a review, when the case is very well made. Liberal Democrat Members are not being obstructive or closing our minds. The case has been well made by the Government in their review. There is no reason whatever to reopen the fundamentals of that debate.

Jamie Reed: Let the record show that the hon. Members for Lewes (Norman Baker) and for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), while talking about my constituency both misleadingly and with impunity, refused to take interventions. That both reflects shamefully on them and embarrasses the Liberal Democrat party.
	The parameters of any debate about nuclear power must acknowledge the environmental benefits and the benefits of supply security that nuclear power brings. The debate must not be sidetracked down the outdated and discredited road of developing ways simply to stop nuclear power at all costs. Such a position is no longer credible, and in my view, it never has been.
	Given the pressing issues of security of supply, global warming and sustained economic growth, we must press ahead with both a political and a national energy consensus. Such a consensus is readily and quickly achievable and must contain significant renewable generation, coal and gas generation and, inescapably, continued future nuclear generation of at least 22 per cent., which nuclear power currently provides.
	I for one did not enter politics to take easy decisions. More often than not, the right decisions require leadership, nerve and vision. It would be easy to denounce the British nuclear industry. It would be easy to listen only to the wilfully misinformed anti-nuclear careerists who have made significant financial sums from telling lies and half-truths about the industry for   the best part of three decades. It would be easy to   swallow the nonsense that is talked about the industry, but producing energy policy on the basis of wilful ignorance and shameless populism would be tantamount to perpetrating a fraud on the British people.
	The myth that this countryor the world, for that mattercan do without nuclear energy has been peddled for too long. In part, I understand the reasons for that: it is hard to drop a prejudice, no matter how illogical it is. However, scientific fact and political opinion, no matter how keenly felt, are separate entities. The fact of the matter is that the political environment that gave rise to the anti-nuclear school of thought has changed as more detailed scientific evidence about the pace and scale of climate change has emerged.
	The greenhouse effect is now widely accepted as scientific fact. No serious politician who acknowledges it can afford to disregard the contribution of nuclear generation as part of the urgent measures that are required to combat climate change. To do so would be self-indulgent, if not delusional.
	I believe the Government's chief scientist when he says that global warming is a more serious threat than terrorism. I believe James Lovelock when he says that climate change is the greatest danger that human civilisation has faced so far. I also agreed with him when he wrote last year:
	Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources.
	He continued:
	I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.
	I echo those sentimentsit is never too late to change a habit, no matter how bad it is.
	Probably the most disingenuous argument used against civil nuclear power is that of problems relating to the disposal of radioactive waste. There are no technical or scientific barriers to the safe disposal of   radioactive waste, only political ones. We know precisely what to do with the waste. There are a finite number of sensible options, and I hope that the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management will make recommendations on the way forward soon.
	Energy policy is perhaps the most important political issue facing Britain as a nation today. As such, we urgently need to establish a national consensus that is based on the national interest. As Senator John Kerry said during his bid for the presidency of the United States, American dependency on outside energy sources presented
	a growing threat to national security.
	The same can be said of Britain today.

Alan Whitehead: Does my hon. Friend accept that of the five major energy sources that might be considered in the review, the only one that has no indigenous raw materials whatever is nuclear power?

Jamie Reed: I accept that, but although we have talked a lot about indigenous materials, we have not talked about reprocessing. If we wished to reprocess, we would have sufficient resources for our nuclear power stations for decades.
	Senator Kerry also called for a declaration of energy independence for the United States. Hon. Members should now call for a declaration of energy security for Britain. The current review of energy policy, which I   assume the debate is designed to influence, must address not only our energy needs, but, crucially, our environmental, economic, national security and foreign policy needs.
	We desperately need to control our energy production and the supply of the resources that we require to produce that energy. The ways in which we do that are well understood. We need significantly increased generation across the board from renewable resourcesthe massive Government investment in that sector has been far-sighted, bold and necessary. We need to develop clean ways of utilising our own carbon resources, such as coal,   gas and oil. We need to ramp up research and   development into energy-saving techniques and technologies for energy used in industry and transport   and domestically. Fundamentally, we need to acknowledge that nuclear generation forms an integral part of the policy solutions that we all require.
	Unless we can control our energy production, we cannot control our economy. If we cannot control our economy, we cannot govern, plan, make necessary investments in public services, ensure that we have a stable economy for private investment, or guarantee the security of our nation and society. Recent events in Ukraine have illustrated precisely that, and it is worth noting for a second exactly what kind of policy effect the episode has had throughout the rest of Europe.
	On Tuesday last week, the Moscow TimesI am sure that hon. Members know that that is widely read in Copelandreported that many European countries are now
	considering going back to nuclear power as they review their energy policies after Gazprom's politically tinged price war with Ukraine.
	Both the German Economics Minister and the Italian Industry Minister told the publication that their countries would now review their nuclear generation policies. The Italian Minister was quoted as saying that nuclear energy was required to safeguard Italy from energy emergencies. In addition, the EU Energy Commissioner has said:
	It is clear that Europe needs a clearer and more collective and cohesive policy on security of energy supply,
	and that he will present a new EU energy policy in the spring.
	It is essential that any new EU policy accommodates future nuclear generation in Britain. I trust that the Government will ensure that that is the case, although I   am certain that the nuclear case will be made and,   I   hope, won by our French cousins. It is inconceivable that nuclear generation will not be part of that policy. The fact is that in Britain and elsewhere, security of energy supply is possible only with a significant element of nuclear generation.
	Britain is in a position to manufacture nuclear fuel,   enable nuclear generation and recycle the fuel used   in electricity production for either reuse or sale. The British nuclear industryparticularly in my constituencyprovides this country with a technological and industrial expertise that is the envy of many of our European partners. If we are serious, as I   believe we all are, about having an effective and diverse energy policy, we must build on that expertise as part of the energy review and take the necessary steps to facilitate a new generation of nuclear power stations in this country.

David Chaytor: If the nuclear renaissance is inevitable, why has no one yet built a new nuclear power station in Britain? If my hon. Friend accepts that the necessary steps to facilitate that have to be taken by the Government, will he say precisely what those necessary steps are and how much subsidy would be involved?

Jamie Reed: I am not aware that any subsidy would be needed. I have spoken with energy generating companies that are keen to invest in nuclear technology and nuclear generation. What they need is a dialogue with the Government about establishing a framework in which they would feel able to do that.
	Nuclear energy can provide us with the security that we require, the economic benefits that we desire and the environmental gains that we so desperately need and, pending a decision on future generation, it can do all that in a relatively short period. Only 10 days or so ago, the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor received full certification from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and, according to the company, it would take only 36 months from the first concrete being poured to fuel being loaded.
	What no one has mentioned so far in this debate is the fact that the British nuclear industry employs approximately 40,000 people in this country. Given that west Cumbria is the national centre of nuclear expertise and is, in my opinion, the emerging global nuclear capital, I hope that my constituency is considered as a candidate site for any future nuclear energy generation.

Tobias Ellwood: Although I agree that we should be debating nuclear power today, I do not agree with the Liberal Democrats' conclusions on the subject. I agree with the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) that it is most important that we debate nuclear energy and our energy needs now, given the events in Ukraine and Russia.
	I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill). His point about Homer Simpson was made in jest, but we should think about the education that we receive on the subject of nuclear energy and ask ourselves where we have learned our facts and figures, whether in the House or prior to our coming here. The education that Britain has received in that difficult subject is tenuous, to say the least. Much of our knowledge is drawn from events such as Chernobyl anddare I say it?from watching cartoons on television such as The Simpsons, in which we see Homer Simpson walking home with a glowing bar in his back pocket. Those images stay with us, and even though people do not believe that that happens, if such impressions are not corrected it is difficult to know what to believe.
	In this debate, differing views have been expressed and statistics have been quoted back and forth across the Chamber, but who is right? The debate that we have to have on energy, including the nuclear question, is fundamental, but it must be conducted in an adult, honest and intelligent manner. I praise the Canadians for their approach: they spent two years having an honest debate before deciding on the direction of their energy policy.

Stewart Hosie: Honesty is required, so will the hon. Gentleman concede that he was rather glib when he referred to Chernobyl? Those events were extremely serious. Will he also reflect on the fact that radioactive particles are constantly being found on the foreshore at Dounreayweek after week, month after month, year after year? There are serious lessons to learn about the dangers of waste and of nuclear energy.

Tobias Ellwood: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. What happened at Chernobyl? Late one evening, technicians who worked there were playing around with the system. They had switched off safety devices and there was no secondary back-up system. That does not happen any more. The back-up systems that we have in place ensure that Chernobyl can never happen again. Unfortunately, the problems that occurred there remain with us and people believe that they could be repeated. Comment was made comparing Chernobyl with a Lada, but Ladas have changed as well, as have ships. We still build large ships. We did not stop building them when the Titanic went down; we made improvements to them.
	The importance of the debate is fundamental, for two reasons: first, it is accepted that we are damaging our planet; and, secondly, we are running out of fuel. The damage that we are doing to our planet is recognised in all parts of the House and by all generations in the House. CO 2 emissions affect our climate. Previous generations created the problem through ignorance, but we compound it through arrogance by doing so little about it.
	Kyoto has achieved much. It is a major step in improving the climate, with 180 countries signing up, but not the United States. I encourage the United States to be included in the next round of talks on climate change. The results of Kyoto have been helpful. If we are successful, 483 million tonnes of emissions will be cut by 2012. However, China, India and the USA combined create 2.7 billion tonnes of CO 2 emissions every year. That puts into perspective the amount of work that remains to be done.
	Let us consider our domestic requirements. We require 350 TWh of power to keep Britain going, and that requirement will increase by about 500 TWh. One third of that power is produced from coal and more than a third from gas. In my intervention on the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), I commented on waste. If we are to have an adult debate about our energy needs, let us put into context where the waste is coming from and what we are doing with it. Much of the waste that we create comes from hospitals. High-level waste also comes from military uses, but that is a separate topic from the debate about civil nuclear energy.
	Security of supply has been discussed. We have concerns about the fact that we now import coal and gas. We are also concerned that the 14 remaining nuclear power stations are about to be switched off. That means that we require 40 per cent. generating capacity that is not even built yet. Many hon. Members have spoken of our gas requirements, which will rise from the current 40 per cent. to 80 per cent. as we become a net importer.
	We had a fruitful debate last week on the problems of gas imports from Ukraine and Russia. It is worth mentioning that Russia and Iran are likely to create a gas cartel. The last time a cartel was formed, in the case of OPEC, there was a sudden rise in the cost of oil. There is a real question about security of supply. The European Union's failure to create a common gas market is causing concern. Had the EU created such a market, we would not be experiencing the problems that we face today.
	Nuclear energy now provides 22 per cent. of our electricity supply, but all nuclear power stations will be closed by 2023. Some of the arguments advanced by the Liberal Democrats are based on the technology that has been used and the success that Britain has had in building nuclear plantsI think the Minister said that   the UK's construction of power stations was not   our finest hour. We are one of the few nations to use gas-cooled reactorseveryone else uses water-cooled reactors. Unfortunately, much of the UK's nuclear industry has moved to Canada and other parts of the world. There were delays in the licensing and approval for nuclear power plants; there were no incentives to get those jobs completed; and the plants were often redesigned as they were constructed. For example, it took 20 years to get a spark out of Dungeness, and it   took six years to obtain planning permission for Sizewell B, the last reactor to be built.
	We have heard nothing from the Liberal Democrats about new technology. Canada has the third-generation CANDU system, which, unlike UK reactors, allows nuclear power plants to continue running while the rods are changed. South Africa is considering the new pebble-bed reactor system, which is much safer than existing systems and uses helium instead of water. Those systems cost about 1 billion each, which sounds like an awful lot of money, but it is the same price as an oil rig or about double the cost of a gas-cooled plant.
	We have not explored fusion and fission. I reckon that we will move into that area in about 60 years, so we need to do some work.
	As I have said, I want to see the Minister produce not only a review, but the answers. What is the next step forward? Although I have not made up my mind, I have tried to correct others and have done my best to learn about the subject. I fear that many hon. Members have more passion than knowledge about the issues, which is dangerous.

Alan Whitehead: We are conducting an ambitious review, which will report shortly. The issue concerns not only a secure supply for the future, but a diverse supply that is not intermittent and contributes to a 60 per cent. cut in CO 2 emissions by 2050if we do not reach that target by 2050, climate change will mean that we do not have another chance to do so. The review is taking place against an uncertain series of parameters, but a reasonable conclusion is that we should source as much of our energy as possible for future use from within the UK.
	We need a mature and careful analysis of all sources of energy. Tonight, we are discussing nuclear power, so it is reasonable to ask how nuclear power might work as part of the mixit cannot form the sole power source. I   want to raise two issuestiming and cost. Nuclear power is not a short-term fix, because all but one of our nuclear power stations will be closed by 2023, so if we are to maintain our present level of nuclear power generation we must replace all those nuclear power stations. In that case, we would have to invest 10 billion to 15 billion over a 10-year period in capital payments for nuclear power stations before a single kilowatt of nuclear energy were produced.
	Tonight's argument has addressed whether direct or indirect subsidy would be required to undertake such a programme. If no subsidies were provided, recent practice suggests that no one would build a nuclear power station, which would take us 10 years down the line with no new nuclear power stations and a greater gap in our energy supply, so the likelihood is that some money will be needed either directly or indirectly. If that money were to be used, the question that we might well ask is what we could get for that money if we did not put it into nuclear. In relation to the outputs that we could get on renewable energy, for example, the figures equate very well.
	The other issue relates to security of supply and getting to a low-carbon economy. In terms of the mix that we could have, we stand in a very positive position compared with most industrialised countries. We have huge reserves of coal that we fail to exploit. We will be a net oil and gas importer, but we will still produce some oil and gas. We have Europe's largest supply of wind, tidal and wave energy. We are almost uniquely blessed in the raw materials for renewable technologies. The nuclear argument states that despite all that we must have nuclear as part of the mix.
	Nuclear is not CO 2 -neutral. Figures have been produced about what the nuclear footprint is in terms of carbon and the whole-life concerns of nuclear generation. It is relatively low-carbon-emitting compared with oil or gas, but only when its fuel is mined from relatively rich sources. As soon as those sources start depleting in richness, the carbon emissions from the mining rise. Under those circumstances, at half the level of the ores that are currently going into British nuclear energy, the overall carbon emissions rise to roughly those of gas.
	It is estimated that at present a 50-year supply of uranium is left. In terms of the uranium used in world nuclear energy, we have a gap, even at present levels, of about 30,000 tonnes across the world. We would have to make that up in future years by mining still more. It is not an indigenous energy supplyit has to be mined from across the world, and it will run out in the not too distant future. We will perhaps commit ourselves to part of our energy supply based on exactly the same arguments about exhaustion of supply that we have faced over the past 50 years. That is not a fundamentally good idea.
	I hope that the energy review will consider those aspects of nuclear power as it considers all the possible sources and the mix that is required.

Norman Lamb: This has been an important debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) pointed out, it would not have taken place had we not provided the opportunity. I welcome it for that reason.
	The arguments in favour of nuclear power have been based on two things: security of supply and global warming. The slightly over-the-top contribution by the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) generated looks of despair among some of his hon. Friends. We can all agree about the absolute imperative of tackling climate change, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes and others pointed out, we can achieve that without nuclear power. It is not just Liberal Democrats saying that. The Tyndall Centre, in its report, Decarbonising the UK, said that we can achieve a 60 per cent. reduction in carbon by 2050. That view is shared by the royal commission on environmental pollution in a report that was accepted by the Government. The Carbon Trust believes that we can achieve it, and the   Government's own White Paper, which was published just three years ago, also claimed that. So there is no case for arguing that there is no alternative.
	We have heard the inevitable attacks on the Liberal Democrats from Labour and Conservative Members, but they seem studiously to ignore the fact that many on their own sides share our analysis. We have had the wonderful spectacle of the Conservatives appointing Zac Goldsmith as an adviser in a desperate attempt to get some credibility with the environmentalists, yet their own spokesman effectively condemned Zac's analysis as fundamentally irresponsible. I look forward to the debates in the Conservative party. Nuclear power is a   horror story, according to Mr. Goldsmith.
	As for the Labour Members who attack us, they are attacking their own Government's White Paper. Our position is remarkably similar to the heading on page 61, which says:
	We do not propose new nuclear power.
	We do not have closed minds; we simply accept the Government's analysis of only three years ago. Many Members, including the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) and   my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr.   Cable) all made the point that nothing has fundamentally changed since that White Paper was published. We were already aware of global warming and that we would become net importers of gas and oil. Either the Government's analysis in the White Paper was flawed or the conclusions hold good today. We take the latter view.
	Since the review, the Government have abjectly failed to do anything effective to cut energy waste. Departments are some of the worst offenders and the Treasury is the worst of all. The Government have also failed to develop a broad mix of renewable sources of energy. They will fail miserably to achieve their target of   reducing 20 per cent. of CO 2 emissions by 2010.
	The debate has examined some of the key anxieties about nuclear power. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) and many others highlighted the unresolved problem of waste. If anything should give people pause for thought, it is the lamentable record of the industry and successive Governments on dealing with waste. I applaud the Minister for Energy for his honesty in admitting a national disgrace. That record represents scandalous neglect of a potentially devastating environmental hazard, which remains today. The legacy ponds in particular are an enormous environmental hazard.
	Those legacy ponds also pose an enormous security threat. In the age of the suicide bomber, should we discount that fear?

Jamie Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Norman Lamb: No.

Alan Duncan: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the subject. It is courteous to give way.

Norman Lamb: Time is short. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham made a compelling argument about cost. [Hon. Members: Give way.] No.
	There is a central contradiction in the Prime Minister's approach. The Government amendment argues for promoting competitive markets but nuclear becomes viable only with a massive distortion of the market.
	Professor Mackerron, an energy economist, highlights the high risk at all stagesconstruction, electricity market and decommissioningapart from the political and regulatory risks. That results in an estimated 2 billion per nuclear plant.
	Nuclear energy requires certainty, for example, through a nuclear obligation at a minimum price for a long time. However, that undermines the liberalised market that the Government appear so keen to promote. That inevitably results in a high cost to the householder or the taxpayer.
	There are two other effects of investment in nuclear. Professor Mackerron and others anticipate the draining away of private investment in other energy sources, both renewable and gas-powered generation. If that happens before a new generation of nuclear energy comes on stream in 2020, concerns about security of supply could get worse.
	There is also a risk of the Government losing interest in renewable investment. They have not shown much in any case but we may already be witnessing a reduction in commitment and investment. Clear skies and photovoltaic programmes have run their course. Now the successor programmes provide reduced investment per year compared with previous schemes.
	For all those reasons, we choose to stand by the analysis of the Government's energy White Paper of only three years ago. We envisage a very different alternative. We support a genuine commitment to cutting energy waste in the domestic, commercial and public sectors. We know that the potential is there but it needs a commitment to achieve it.
	We want investment in carbon capture and storage. According to Professor Haszeldine, a geologist at Edinburgh university:
	Britain is perfectly placed to exploit it.
	We need investment in clean coal technology, and in the whole basket of renewables, not just in wind power. Biomass, biofuels, solar, wind, wave and tidal power also need to be pursued. We must also develop innovative and much more efficient local distribution sources of electricity, which could make the traditional centralised grid obsolete.
	There must also be investment in microgeneration. According to the Energy Saving Trustan organisation specifically funded by the Governmentby 2050, between 30 and 40 per cent. of the UK's electricity needs could be met by microgeneration

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Barry Gardiner: This is the first time in almost six years that an Opposition motion has been tabled by the Liberal party without the name of the right   hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr.   Kennedy) appearing above it on the Order Paper. I regret that it does not appear there, and so should the Liberal Democrats. Whatever disagreements we might have had with the positions adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, at least under his leadership his party tried to engage with the facts before reaching its conclusions. Today, however, his erstwhile deputy and would-be successor has reversed that process. Despite the fact that the country is in the midst of an energy review, and the   consultation document is about to be launched, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir   Menzies Campbell) has instructed his troops not to listen to any distracting facts that the public or the energy industry might bring forward. Like Jason, he has stuffed wool into his Argonauts' ears so that they cannot hear the siren voicesthe voices of fact, investigation and open-minded debate.
	The Liberal Democrats have a policy. In the motion on the Order Paper, they commit themselves to opposing
	the construction of a new generation of civil nuclear power plants,
	come what may. Never mind the facts, never mind the quality of the argument; on this matter, under this leadership, the Lib Dems' minds are closed.

Menzies Campbell: Before the Minister gets entirely bound up in Greek mythology, will he tell us how he describes the Members on his own side of the House who oppose nuclear energy?

Barry Gardiner: The distinction is quite simple. The Government are open to listening to the arguments; the   right hon. and learned Gentleman has cut it off and said that he will not listen to the arguments put forward in the energy review.
	There is, however, one honourable exception on the Liberal Democrat Benches: the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has apparently refused to sign up to the gagging order. In recent interviews in the Sunday Herald, The Scotsman and just about every other Scottish journal, he has dismissed the emotional arguments of his colleagues, saying that the new nuclear reactors could be the least worst option for maintaining security of supply and reducing carbon emissions. He has also very sensibly insisted:
	If, as may be the case, the answer were to be nuclear, in those circumstances it would not give me a problem. It would be responsible to consider nuclear as one of the options.
	The hon. Gentleman is, of course, his party's Scotland spokesperson, and with his fine Scots quality of plain speaking, he has counselled, We need honest information. As Nicol Stephen might say: Oh no, John; no, John, no!
	I, too, am a believer in honest information, and as we approach the difficult issues that surround energy policy, it is important that we start with a clear and honest appraisal of our position. It is clear that our market-based energy policy has delivered significant benefits to the United Kingdom. The UK is on track to meet the Kyoto target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Although we are experiencing some price hikes in the gas market this winter, UK energy markets remain among the most competitive in the EU, on both industrial and domestic electricity and gas prices. The number of households in fuel poverty in the UK has fallen by more than 4.5 million since 1996, and more than 1 million vulnerable households have been assisted by the Warm Front scheme. The renewables obligation and the climate change levy exemption will result in support to renewables of 1 billion a year by 2010. As a result of the renewables obligation, last year saw the largest amount of renewable generation ever installed in the UK.
	We have seen many changes to the energy landscape since the 2003 energy White Paper. Evidence on the adverse impact of climate change has continued to grow, and world prices for fossil fuels have increased by more than 50 per cent. over the past three years. Projected prices are now much higher than many people predicted at the time of the 2003 White Paper. North sea gas production has declined more rapidly than many predicted, so the UK has become a net importer of gas sooner than anticipated. We need to consider the risks of relying on imported gas when there is increasing sensitivity in relation to global energy issues.
	The goals set out in the 2003 energy White Paper continue to provide the right framework for our energy policy, but as was stated and envisaged in that White Paper, we are keeping our detailed policy under review and are prepared to amend it in the light of experience.
	The energy review will examine some extremely complex issues. It will not produce simple yes or no answers, as the Liberal Democrats have. There will be no single solution and no single silver bullet, which is why the review will look right across the energy landscape. On renewables, for example, at present, predominantly wind turbines will play a key role as the renewables obligation delivers increasing new generation capacity. But renewables cannot provide the whole answer, either on generation capacity issues or on our carbon goals.
	Other renewables may emerge over time as significant players, such as microgeneration, wave and tidal, but currently only wind can provide meaningful low-carbon capacity at a cost comparable to that of existing non-renewable technologies such as gas, coal and nuclear.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) argued passionately and with great knowledge, estimating that the UK can raise its renewables capacity to European levels, as the Liberal Democrats also propose. I trust, however, that he agrees that it will be difficult to do so if Liberal Members, and Liberal parties up and down the country, continue to oppose wind farms, as they have in North Devon at Fullabrook down; in Ross, Skye and Easter Ross on the Isle of Skye; in Porthcawl at Scarweather sands; in Penrith in Cumbria at Whinash wind farm; and, as their politicians did, at Totnes in south Devon, as well as at Durham and Denshaw in Lancashire.
	We are also considering other means to cut our carbon emissions, such as carbon capture and storage. Our carbon abatement strategy includes 25 million of capital grants that, among other options, could be used to support a demonstration of capture-ready technology, not least through clean coal technology. That has been increased to 35 million as a result of the Chancellor's pre-Budget statement of 5 December.
	While this is not a nuclear review, it would be wrong for the Government to dismiss that subject out of hand, without first considering the evidence. Nuclear might provide some answers, but there are major factors to be considered first, such as, what would be the implications for our carbon reduction targets of nuclear's share of the energy mix falling? What do the economics of nuclear look like, given the sharp rise in oil and gas prices? Of course, we will also need to consider the issue of waste management. That has been mentioned this evening.
	I should stress, however, that the cost of our historic nuclear legacy is not solely a function of nuclear power generation; far from it. It represents the lifetime costsabout 56 billion, which the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has estimated is necessary to clean up all its sites. That legacy is in part made up of experimental facilities created 50 to 60 years ago and without any consideration being given to future decommissioning and clear-up. It is important to note that some 80 per cent. of the costs relate to pioneering and experimental sites, including Sellafield and Dounreay. Those costs were never predicated on generating capacity. The costs of decommissioning modern nuclear reactors would be built in from day one, which was not the case with the facilities of earlier generations.
	In conclusion, I want to make it clear that the dividing line in this debate between those on the Liberal Democrat Benches and those on the Government side is   not that they are against nuclear and we are for it. It is that we go into an open and transparent public energy review with an open mind, willing to listen to all the arguments. The Liberal Democrats, in contrast, do not want to engage in that debate because their mind is closed.
	However, the Liberal Democrats, having made up their mind and stated in their manifesto that they will replace nuclear power with renewables and energy conservation measures, must explain what

Andrew Stunell: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 63, Noes 309.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	The House divided: Ayes 289, Noes 63.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	   That this House welcomes the recent announcement of an energy review to assess future options on both the supply and demand for energy including the role of civil nuclear power; and notes the Government's energy policy as set out in the 2003 Energy White Paper, to make progress towards the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, to maintain the reliability of energy supplies, to promote competitive markets in the UK and beyond and to ensure that every home is adequately and affordably heated.

PETITIONS
	  
	Hospitals

Philip Dunne: I rise to represent the concerns of the residents of Bridgnorth and the surrounding area in the face of 10 per cent. cuts in health care provision in the county of Shropshire. I have a petition with 11,781 names, which states:
	The Petition of users of Bridgnorth Community Hospital,
	Declares that the future of Bridgnorth Community Hospital is under threat through the county-wide review of healthcare services seeking to find cuts to fund the 36 million of historic debt and 25 million of annual losses in the NHS in the County of Shropshire and Telford  Wrekin Unitary Authority. The petitioners are concerned to prevent cuts in services or worse, the threat of closure of the hospital.
	The petitioners note the significant capital investment in Bridgnorth Community Hospital which is under way and are concerned to prevent cuts in services or worse, the threat of closure of the hospital.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons make the Department of Health aware of the petitioners concerns against cuts in services or closure of the hospital.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

Philip Dunne: I also rise to represent the concerns of the residents of Ludlow and the surrounding area, where 10,220 residents have signed a similar petition, which I shall read to the House.
	The petition of users of Ludlow Community Hospital,
	Declares that the future of Ludlow Community Hospital is under threat through the county-wide review of healthcare services seeking to find cuts to fund the 36 million of historic debt and 25 million of annual losses in the NHS in the County of Shropshire and Telford  Wrekin Unitary Authority. The petitioners are concerned to prevent cuts in services or worse, the threat of closure of the hospital.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons make the Department of Health aware of the petitioners concerns against cuts in services or closure of the hospital.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

SCHOOL MILK

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Claire Ward]

Lindsay Hoyle: This is obviously an interesting time to hold a debate on school milk. One could say that early-day motion 1329, School Milk, has had a great effect. Proposals to abolish school milk have been withdrawn and we shall keep it.
	Most Members will remember the great slogan, Mrs.   ThatcherMilk Snatcher. Can we now say Minister Knight has got it right, or Lord Bach has brought it back? There could be a lot of slogans on the back of this debate.

David Taylor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I   hate to interfere with his rhetoric and his poetry. Does he agree that abolition of school milk was an early act of Mrs. Thatcher's that we reversed and that it is a pity that we have no plans to reverse one of her later actsthe decoupling of pensions from pay and the economy? In Chorley, North-West Leicestershire and throughout the country, children in 15,000 schools receive significant nutritional value from milk at a very low cost indeed, so will my hon. Friend congratulate a little more warmly the ministerial duo, Lord Bach and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, our hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), on what they have done in that regard? It is a huge step forward for nutrition and sends all the right signals for our public health agenda.

Lindsay Hoyle: I agree and shall pay compliments to the Minister, if I am given a little more time.
	School milk is important in a balanced diet, providing iodine and riboflavin. There are many reasons why school milk should be provided. We welcome the fact that the Government overruled departmental officials. After all, how much are we talking about? Savings of only 1.5 million. Thank goodness that politicians made the final decision and that it was the right decision. There is no doubt that providing milk for 15,000 nursery and primary schools in England will be of real and significant benefit. As has been pointed out, the Government pay only 1.5 million; the remainder is paid by the European Union. Would it not have been senseless for us to refuse EU money to provide the white stuff for children up to the age of seven?
	I congratulate the Minister on the decision that has been taken. It is right that common sense has prevailed. It is important that the Government are listening to the   views of parents, schools and MPs throughout the country, because their view is clear: keep milk in schools. Congratulations are due for the fact that that has happened.
	Of course, a correct diet is important, and milk plays a significant part in that. We know how important milk can be to youngsters at school. According to the national diet and nutrition survey, the average daily intake of milk for children aged four to seven is 370 ml, and for those aged seven to 11 it is 277 ml. If children receive 50 ml or less, if we are getting it right for children up to the age of seven, if the EU subsidy exists for children over the age of seven and if the cost is only 1.5 million for nursery and primary schools, why do we not ensure that all children up to the age of 11 benefit from school milk?

Peter Bone: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. Am I to understand that the EU would give us some money to subsidise milk in our schools and we are not taking it? For goodness' sake, let us get something back from the EU.

Lindsay Hoyle: The good news is that we are taking money back, but we could take more money from the EU by extending the scheme up to the age of 11. Surely, we ought to be selling that on the benefits that milk brings. There is no doubt that children benefit from the calcium, other minerals and riboflavinwe can include iodinethat come from milk. The debate thankfully gives us the opportunity to recognise the importance of expanding the scheme and taking some of the money back from the EU.

David Crausby: Is it not bizarre that we should be even talking about the removal of milk from schools, while some hon. Members would advocate the introduction of fluoride in water? Does he agree that if he had to choose between milk and fluoride, milk would be in the best interests of our children?

Lindsay Hoyle: Who could disagree with that? Of course, I welcome my hon. Friend's comments. Yes, I totally agree that milk is important, but the challenge now is to expand the scheme. For the sake of 1.5 million, what are we playing at? We know that if milk is not provided, parents can take an easy option and we see schools where children can get cans of Coke. The Government and, in fairness, MPs of all persuasions are committed to a healthy diet in schools. We are trying to get rid of the Coca-Cola machines and Pepsi machinesit does not matter whichand the bad diet must be removed. What better way of doing sowe are now seeing this happenthan to put in new machines that provide fresh milk? Unfortunately, people must pay for that, yet the European Commission is offering us money to expand the scheme. Let us not hesitate any more. Let us take advantage of that, because there is double benefit, not only to children in this country but to the farming community. That is why it was absolutely critical that we got it rightotherwise, there would have been a double whammy: not only would children not have had the benefit of milk, but there would have been a major effect on British farming.

Daniel Kawczynski: I certainly had a bottle of milk every day when I was at school, and I have grown to be 6 ft 8 in. That shows the benefits of drinking milk. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue of dairy farmers. Does he agree that it is extremely important for the Government to do even more to ensure that dairy farmers get considerably higher prices for the milk that they produce?

Lindsay Hoyle: I absolutely agree. I can see that the rest of us only got a third of a pint at school; some got a litre of milkit was obviously double Jerseyand we can see the benefit of that. On a serious note, it is important that we recognise what the scheme can do for farming, and what effect the schools market could have on farming. It is critical that that point is raised.
	It is crucial that there is a fair farm-gate price for milk, and the benefit of that milk going into schools must continue. Farming in this country is dependent on that free milk being given, which is why we can give benefit to not only an older generation of children at school, but British farming. A new market can be created. We would not be saying, It's the supermarkets or nothing because schools could create a challenge to the supermarkets. By expanding the scheme, perhaps we could get a better and fairer price for farmers, which is important.

Philip Dunne: May I emphasise the importance of dairy farming? Prices are a matter of supply and demand, and if free school milk were withdrawn, it would be unlikely that that demand would be replaced by a demand for milk by parents and households. The element of demand would go from the marketplace, which would inevitably depress prices further. That would have a deleterious effect on the farming industry and many more farmers would thus leave it.
	The importance of the debate resonates outside the House. Recently, the intervention of one of my hon. Friends had an impact on a major high street retailer. It was stocking chocolate oranges at the counter, but is now stocking apples and real oranges as a result of the intervention. I am impressed that the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) has secured the debate and I hope that it will encourage even more schools to take up free school milk.

Lindsay Hoyle: I am not quite sure who has all the chocolate oranges at Smith's any more, but that is another matter. The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the future of farming. We have a great chance to help farmers in the UK by ensuring that there is a market that we can expand as more children benefit from the nutritional value of milk.
	I look around the Chamber and see my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland (Dr. Kumar), for Derby, North (Mr. Laxton), for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) and for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Crausby), as well as Opposition Members, who are taking a keen interest in the importance of not only farming, but the future of free milk in schools. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are supporting the benefits of free school milk and the benefits of that for British farming. Free school milk will play a key role in the future. There is no doubt that farmers in my constituency and dairy farmers throughout Lancashire welcome the opportunity to supply schools, and that must continue.
	The Minister is sympathetic towards farming. I know that he takes on board such concerns because he has said in Westminster Hall that he is taking up the challenge of trying to ensure that there is a future for farming in this country, as we must do. I know that he will be listening tonight and taking on board what is said. He will say to people in the Department for Education and Skills, Let us help young people in schools and also British farming. We have the backing of the National Farmers Union, farmers and schoolseveryone who matters and is concerned. That was why parents could not believe that a statement came out at Christmasof all timessaying that school milk was being taken away. That is the problem when bureaucrats get in charge of the media, but thankfully this is now about politicians putting things right and doing right by the children and farmers of this country.
	There is no doubt that we all benefit from milk. I   still get milk delivered at home. Entwistle has delivered to our family for years and long may that continue. There was a danger that if we eroded a market such as that for schools, we would affect the local farmers who deliver to the doorstep in any weather, be that rain or snow. When the supermarket is not there, I   know that our local farmer is there to deliver to our doorstep. We have that advantage, and the situation is exactly the same in all our constituencies. There is no doubt that the issue is emotive.
	I was pleased that about 50 hon. Members signed the early-day motion in support of free school milk. That showed what we could do. It showed that politicians can get things right by working together, and that people listen.

Jim Dobbin: I have been mulling over what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Crausby) said about fluoride in water. Would a combination of free milk in schools and fluoride in water improve the dental health of young people throughout the country?

Lindsay Hoyle: The debate is about free school milk and we have to stick to that subject.
	It is Government policy to promote healthy diets and we have seen the introduction of free fruit in schoolsthey distribute the fruit that the Government fund. I say to the Minister that if we are willing to fund that, we must not continue to give up the EU money to which we   are entitled. It is not often that we can get money, so   we should take advantage of the opportunity. I have raised that subject with the Lancashire local education authority. It is a big education authority that delivers superb results through good schools, but it has failed to take advantage of the extra money that is available. LEAs can apply for an EU subsidy for milk provision, but they shy away from making up the difference. However, it would take only 1.5 million to enable school milk to be provided to children up to the age of   11.

David Taylor: As well as the benefits and strengths of the Government's approach, does my hon. Friend acknowledge that the critics have two valid points, to which we hope the Minister will respond? The first is that the cost of administering the scheme is substantial in relation to the subsidy that is given. Secondly, there is an issue of the type of milk providedwhether skimmed milk is better for young people than the whole milk that   accounts for the greater proportion of the milk consumed.

Lindsay Hoyle: As ever, my hon. Friend makes valuable points.
	We have heard the announcement that school milk is to stay, but we want to make sure that that is not for the short term, but for the long term. That is the reassurance that we seek from the Minister. We also want the scheme to be extended, so what can he do in his capacity to get people round the table?

David Crausby: Would it not make much more sense and make everyone happy to put fluoride in milk and provide milk to 11-year-olds? In that way, we would all benefit.

Lindsay Hoyle: My hon. Friend had a full page in the Bolton Evening News saying how important school milk is, and it is very important. No doubt hon. Members here tonight will send out press releases saying, rightly, that this debate shows MPs at their best, delivering for our constituents. Thankfully, we have done that.
	We have a good Minister and the right decisions have been made. We look forward to hearing what he has to say about the long-term future of school milk and about extending the scheme. What can he do through his good offices to work with the DFES? I am not sure where the   report came from and which Department made the decisionwas it DEFRA or the DFES? What we do know is that the bureaucrats made a decision and it took elected Members to overturn it. I thank the Minister for that.

Jim Knight: I   congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on having secured this debate on the important subject of school milk. Given his record, it comes as no surprise that the issue has attracted his attention. He is adept at keeping his finger on the pulse of developments in the milk sector. Tonight, he is adding to his already formidable reputation for having a profound knowledge of the dairy industry and for being a consistent and vigorous advocate for it through parliamentary questions and his participation in the Adjournment debate on milk prices in November last year.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject tonight, because it gives me the opportunity to talk about the importance of school milk and what the Government are doing to support it. There has been much discussion of the publication of the recent economic evaluation of the school milk top-up subsidy. I am glad to have an opportunity to clarify that matter, because some of my hon. Friend's interpretation of events needs a little clarification.
	The subsidy scheme is long-established and valued by many, including many in all parts of the House, particularly by those campaigning for good childhood nutrition, and by the dairy industry, which sees the scheme as helping to encourage children to develop a lasting taste for milk.
	The Government are proud of their track record in improving children's eating. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley mentioned, we are aware that poor diet can create a barrier to learning, affecting the ability to concentrate as well as contributing to health problems in both the short and the longer term. That is a matter of concern to all of us, although we feel that as a Government we have made some headway.
	The food provided in schools is a key component of many pupils' diet. Getting it right is vital. That is why, in March last year, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills announced a package of measures to help schools and local authorities transform school meals. A key measure was the establishment of the school meals review panel, whose recommendations for nutritional standards for school food seek to promote water, fruit juices and milk as the preferred drinks in schools. It is recognised that milk is a valuable component of a balanced diet and a healthier alternative to soft drinks. I should make it clear that when I talk about milk as part of a balanced diet, I mean skimmed or semi-skimmed milk.
	The Department of Health is also playing its part in promoting a more balanced diet. For example, the school fruit and vegetable scheme provides a free piece of fruit or vegetable each school day to all children aged four to six attending local education authority-maintained infant, primary and special schools throughout England. It also operates a welfare food scheme, which, among other things, reimburses certain day care facilities for providing a third of a pint of milk free of charge to children under five attending for at least two hours a day. As part of the current welfare food scheme reforms, changes to the provision of milk in day care will be considered. However, we do not expect changes to be made until at least autumn 2006.
	Against that background of developing support for improving the diet of children in school, supporters of school milk have queried why the report was commissioned. I hope to explain this. The EU funds a scheme that must be made available across all member states and subsidises the provision of milk to primary and nursery schools. Participation in the scheme is entirely a matter for schools or local education authorities. Parents generally pay the difference between the actual cost and the subsidy. The UK applies only the   mandatory elements of the EU scheme, whereby the subsidy is payable on plain and flavoured whole and semi-skimmed milk and plain whole and semi-skimmed milk yoghurt. In practice, most milk is supplied as whole milk in one third of a pint servings. It is estimated that some 1.2 million children in England receive subsidised milk.
	The EU subsidy on school milk was reduced in 2000. Since 1 January 2001, the UK Government have provided national aid to supplement the EU subsidy. The Government provide an annual maximum of 1.5 million in England, funded jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health for this purpose. Annual expenditure has been in the region of 6 million to 7 millionthat is, the EU scheme plus the national top-up. The Government provide funding for the supplement and, in practice, bear the cost of some 70 per cent. of the EU element. As has been said, administration of the scheme by the Rural Payments Agency and schools adds to its overall cost. That is an aspect of the report that we shall study closely.
	The EU subsidy scheme and the national supplement are both highly thought of, but the fact that they are highly valued cannot exclude them from the Department's rolling programme of policy reviews. That is why the review was carried out. It is surely right that the Government should examine their programmes from time to time to assess whether they make the best use of public money. The report on the top-up's effectiveness and efficiency was commissioned from independent economists and was published on 4 January. At no point was a decision made by bureaucratsthat was the word used by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley. The only decision that has been made is to carry on with the scheme. Up to that point, all we had was a very useful report from the independent economists. I defend my officials on that point.
	The report found that the total whole milk subsidy per serving in December 2004 was just under 4p, with the top-up constituting 0.75p of that sum. On average, the remaining costs, which are usually met by parents, amounted to between 11p and 12p. The report was critical of the scheme largely on the grounds of its administrative cost and lack of clear rationale in terms of child health. A number of recommendations were made, including ending the top-up and spending the 1.5 million on the more targeted promotion of milk.
	Together with colleagues at the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills, we considered the recommendations carefully, butas has been pointed outas politicians we decided for the following reasons that they should not be pursued and that the subsidy scheme should remain unchanged. As I   have said, what children eat has caused considerable concern, and the subsidy contributes to the Government's wider programme to improve nutrition and tackle health inequalities. The report concentrated on the scheme's value for money and did not cover issues specific to deprivation. However, it concluded that the withdrawal of the top-up could lead to 16 per cent. of school heads giving up participation in the scheme, which could affect more vulnerable children in particular. We think it important to maintain a clear message on the role that school milk plays when we try to promote healthier alternatives to soft drinks in schools and focus on improving nutritional standards. All those factors helped to persuade us that now is the right time to alter a scheme that involves a relatively small amount of public money, but that forms a significant plank in the Government's nutrition programme.
	One of the report's key recommendations was that funding should be expanded for the successful elements of existing programmes to increase teenagers' milk consumption, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley clearly feels strongly about extending the scheme to secondary schools. In 1996, the previous Government ended the subsidy for secondary schools largely due to public expenditure pressures and chose to focus attention on younger children. All Governments face public expenditure pressures, and must make choices, and we believe that there are other ways to develop milk provision in secondary schools.
	The Government have a part to play in promoting milk consumption, but the industry also needs to maximise the opportunities arising from the good work funded by the taxpayer, which is, after all, to its benefit. That is why we applaud the imaginative initiative operated by the industry and the Milk Development Council, which has led to milk bars being set up in secondary schools. There are now some 1,000 milk bars in England and Wales and, by all accounts, they have proved to be very attractive to teenagers, who are not the easiest people to please in my experience and certainly in my home. The Milk Development Council should be praised both for that initiative and for its other schemes that promote the provision of milk in schools, because it has done some tremendously good work in that area.
	I shall resist the temptation to dwell on fluoride in milk, which is an ingenious idea. Fluoride is an issue that has preoccupied previous Health Ministers at the Dispatch Box, but I have listened to enough of those debates in my limited period in Parliament to know that it is easy to get sidetracked on that issue, so I shall stick to the subject of this debate. However, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends for their work on not only that issue, but the importance of school milk in their constituenciesthe people of Bolton and elsewhere should be proud of their representation in this House.
	The continuing success story on school milk together with the fact that the new school food standards will take into account appropriate levels of nutrient intakeincluding calcium, which can be lacking in older childrenwas another reason not to divert money from the subsidy scheme.
	We also bore in mind the possible negative effects on the dairy industry of any shift from the scheme in a period of far-reaching change. I noted the comments made by Conservative Members in support of the industry. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are well aware that it is having to absorb the effects of common agricultural policy reform and of moving towards a more free-market system. Given that Members on both sides of the House agree with using a free-market system, I should emphasise that it is inappropriate for the Government to intervene directly on pricing. That does not mean, however, that we are not pursuing the initiatives that we have discussed in previous debates in respect of the Dairy Supply Chain Forum and our ongoing discussions about the milk market with supermarkets and the Office of Fair Trading.
	We are addressing concerns about low farm-gate prices and the increased concentration and buying power of the large multiple retailers. At this time of change for the industry, with those sorts of pressures, we should encourage the next generation of consumers to take advantage of the nutritional benefits of milk and provide stability for the dairy industry at a time when there is so much change elsewhere.
	For those reasons, we have decided not to make any changes to the top-up scheme. We believe that an early announcement would stop further unnecessary speculation on the report's findings. Understandably, given the nature of the media reporting of this independent report, people believe that the decision
	The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Madam Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned at one minute past Eleven o'clock.